The following information will acquaint you with the rights and benefits of partial-load employees – and perhaps also provide you with the incentive to become an active member of your union, OPSEU — the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

Do you teach more than 6 and up to and including 12 hours per week on a contract basis (in day and/or night programs) for an Ontario College of Applied Arts & Technology (CAAT)? If so, you are a partial-load faculty member and are part of the OPSEU bargaining unit covered by the Collective Agreement for CAAT-Academic faculty in Ontario.

OPSEU stands for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. Academic staff selected OPSEU as their union in the 1970s. OPSEU negotiates your collective agreement and represents you in day-to-day contract administration regarding working conditions, salary, and benefits. You are automatically entitled to these services under the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act.

By law, union dues, which are tax deductible, are deducted by the College from your pay, whether or not you join the union, since all who receive these valuable services share the cost of providing them.

Each of the faculty unions in the 24 Community Colleges constitutes one “local” in the overall OPSEU organizational structure which includes locals from a wide variety of Ontario public services. Decisions made by members at the local level can greatly affect the overall direction of the union .

Your local officers and stewards are your primary source of information and guidance (in addition to your Collective Agreement, of course) as you deal with day-to-day workplace conditions. You may wish to bookmark your local's home page [opseu560.org ] for easy access to your directory of stewards and the latest information pertinent to faculty at your college.

If you wish to ensure confidentiality when communicating with your union local, we advise that you use a private e-mail address, rather than using your College e-mail account.

While the payment of union dues is automatic, membership in the union is voluntary. So why should you bother joining? Here are a few of the benefits of membership.

•  Union members develop contract demands for bargaining and union policy. They can present motions, and vote at union meetings. By participating in your local's meetings, you can advance your particular interests as partial-load faculty. This function is especially important when each union local establishes its demands for an upcoming round of negotiations.

•  Union members may run for union office and participate in the election of stewards and officers who direct the activities of the union local, the trustees who oversee the financial records of the local, and the delegates who represent the local at OPSEU's CAAT-A demand-setting meetings and at the annual OPSEU Convention.

•  In the event of a lockout or strike, only union members are entitled to strike pay.

•  Numbers count. The number of delegates from your local to the annual OPSEU Convention is determined by the number of signed members in your local. The more CAAT-Academic delegates we have voting at convention, the greater our impact on the direction of OPSEU. Also, OPSEU central provides a rebate to the local of members' union dues that is determined by the number of members in the local.

Because your partial-load contract is short-term and not permanent, you must rejoin the union each time you commence a partial-load contract. Since the colleges are slow to provide the union locals with the information that would permit us to reach partial-load faculty, we advise you to contact a local steward to request a membership form each term you commence a new partial-load contract.

The Collective Agreement affects vital aspects of your job and, eventually, your retirement, such as:

•  your wages and seniority;
•  your access to extended health and paraprofessional services;
•  your access to employee-paid insurance benefits, including vision, hearing, dental and life insurance;
•  your access to paid sick leave; and
•  your CAAT-A retirement pension.

We encourage you to take full advantage of these important rights and financial rewards – won for you through tough bargaining by OPSEU.

You should have received a copy of the Collective Agreement from your college's human resources department when you were initially hired or when more than a year has passed since your previous partial-load contract. Contact the union or the human resources department if you don't have your copy.

Many of the articles of the Collective Agreement apply to both partial-load and full-time faculty. However, since partial-load salary, step progression, job security, health and insurance benefits, and sick-leave provisions differ from those of full-time employees, the rights exclusively related to partial-load employees are defined in Article 26 of the Collective Agreement (http://www.opseu.org/caat/caat_ac/ca.htm) . We encourage you to read it carefully.

The following paragraphs provide commentary and advice on various aspects of the contract that pertain to partial-load faculty.

Following passage of the Pay Equity Act (1987), OPSEU was able to negotiate improved rights for partial-load employees starting in 1990 under the Academic Pay Equity Plan . Partial-load faculty are paid for teaching contact hours, although a portion of the new hourly pay rate is in lieu of vacation pay. Every time the full-time faculty salary has increased through contract negotiations, the same percentage increase has been applied to the salaries of partial-load faculty.

However, changes in the college system, such as dramatically increased class sizes and an increasing reliance on partial-load faculty, have resulted in the creation of a large underpaid and overworked segment of partial-load faculty whose workload is restricted only by the maximum limit of 12 hours of teaching per week, unlike that of full-time faculty whose workload is limited in terms of many other factors such as class size, teaching contact hours, and the number of course preparations and sections.

•  Your Initial Placement on the Salary Grid

Partial-load faculty are assessed in terms of education and experience to determine their starting salary. The Job Classification Plans at the end of the Collective Agreement define the factors for assessing your qualifications and computing your initial placement. The colleges are obliged to provide union locals with the initial step placement for partial-load employees, so your local can review your placement with you. In preparation, please complete our Salary-Calculation Form to determine whether your placement on the salary grid is accurate. If you have any concerns, please contact your union local for advice.

•  Your Progression on the Salary Grid

A copy of the multi-step salary grid for partial-load faculty is set out in Article 26.04. Each calendar month in which partial-load employees teach 30 hours or more entitles them to a half-month's credit for service. Each accumulation of ten months of service will entitle partial-load employees to one year of service and one step up on the salary grid. Hence, it generally takes partial-load faulty at least two years to move one step up the salary grid.

•  Seniority

Each college publishes a seniority list which is posted for at least two weeks in the college and sent to the union local president sometime in January each year. Be sure to check this list and personally file written notice of any inaccuracy to the college within two weeks of the end of the posting (Articles 27.04 A, B, & C).

You are entitled to a half-month's credit towards seniority for each month in which you teach 30 or more hours. Each ten months of credit gives you a year more of seniority (Articles 26.10 B & C).

•  Termination

You must receive 30 days' notice of layoff from the College. Likewise, if you resign, you must provide the College with 30 days' notice (Article 26.10 A).

There is limited protection for partial-load faculty against bumping in the event of the lay-off of a full-time employee (Articles 27.04 A and 27.06 A (iv) and (v)). Essentially, a full-time faculty member can bump you if he/she has more seniority than you and possesses the “competence, skill and experience” required for the position you occupy or for the courses you are teaching (or their prerequisites).

•  Employment Insurance

When you apply for Employment Insurance, be sure you are credited not simply for the hours you have spent teaching in the classroom, but also the hours you have spent in meetings, preparation and evaluation. You can refer to Article 8.04 B (i) of the Collective Agreement where, for the purposes of workload calculation, each teaching contact hour (TCH) is credited as 2.17 workload hours. As well, to calculate your 'real' workload for EI purposes, you might also like to complete our Standard Workload Form (SWF) spreadsheet.

To acquaint yourself with the regulations regarding Employment Insurance, please visit the government web site: http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/ei/menu/eihome.shtml .

Optional life insurance, medical, dental and paraprofessional services are part of a remuneration package negotiated by OPSEU for all partial-load faculty and their dependents as part of The Academic Pay Equity Plan, and we strongly recommend that you take advantage of these benefits, in particular the Extended Health Care whose premiums are paid entirely by the college during employment contract periods. The benefit levels are the same as those for full-time faculty for all insurance plans.

Sun Life, OPSEU, and the Council have prepared a special benefits booklet entitled Your Benefits exclusively for partial-load faculty. For full details about your group benefits, please consult this booklet.

• The Sun Life "Positive Enrolment Form for Group Insurance Benefits"

The benefits administrator at each college is required to meet with you upon your hiring to review your benefit options. Unfortunately, this does not always happen. Therefore, since there are important deadlines to meet, you may need to contact your benefits administrator as soon as you are hired to ensure that you receive the appropriate forms and are enrolled for the benefits that best suit you and your dependents. 

Although the colleges are required to enroll you automatically for Extended Health Care, please note that the default coverage is for single-person coverage. Therefore, be sure you complete the Sun Life Positive Enrolment Form for Group Insurance Benefits to indicate officially your decision to participate in the available benefit entitlements, with either individual or family coverage.

• Important Deadlines

(1.) Read carefully the information package provided to you by the college and respond within 31 days of being hired in any contract period to ensure the most advantageous coverage. For instance, if you and/or your family members have pre-existing medical conditions, you may still sign up if you do not miss the 31-day window. Should you wait beyond the initial 31-day deadline to sign up, you will be required to submit proof of good health via a "Health Questionnaire Form," and Sun Life could determine that you may never be eligible for coverage.
(2.)Like full-time employees, you also have just 31 days to make changes to your plan if there is a change in your circumstances such as marriage, divorce, birth or death.

• Benefit Plans

You may elect to participate in any of the following benefit plans:

A. Employer-paid benefits ( monthly premium is 100% employer paid)

• extended health care, which includes varying levels of coverage for:

•  prescription drugs (85% coverage),
•  paramedical services (85% coverage, to a maximum of $1,500 per person per year),
•  semi-private hospital lodging (100% coverage),
•  some hospital and out-patient services outside Canada

In the case of extended health care, the college is required to pay 100% of premiums for all partial-load employees, with the exception of persons who have coverage with a spouse. The plan is voluntary for this group only. Our advice is that everyone who falls into this group who answers "NO" to the question “Is your spouse a judge?” should opt for Extended Health Benefits. There is a provision called Coordination of Benefits, and the only spouses that would have a plan that would wipe out the value of having two plans to coordinate benefits are judges. To find a definition of Coordination of Benefits, go to the Your Benefits  booklet mentioned above.

B. Employee-paid benefits (monthly premium is 100% employee paid)

• vision care
• hearing
• dental care
• basic life insurance
• accidental death and dismemberment insurance
• critical illness and catastrophic event insurance
• supplementary life insurance
• employee-paid life insurance
• dependent life insurance

Waiting periods & Bridging

There is an initial waiting period for all benefit plans (see booklet), generally the first of the month following completion of one calendar month's employment, although the dental plan requires the completion of six months. However, if you are rehired on a partial-load contract within six months of the end of any previous contract, the waiting period is waived (Article 26.06 D).

Moreover, partial-load faculty may continue to receive benefits between contracts with the proviso that they pay 100% of their premiums during this period (Article 26.06D).

Need Help Understanding Your Benefits or Making a Claim?

If you need help, please contact your union office as well as the individual responsible for benefits at the college (at Seneca, Kim McGann). In addition, the Joint Insurance Committee, a provincial body made up of representatives from the Council, the Union and SunLife, oversees the insurance plans and handles individual appeals. If you are denied a claim, let us know and we will assist you while respecting your confidentiality.

Any concern regarding an appeal or a benefit right can be addressed to the union representative on the Joint Insurance Committee. The union chair of this committee is Jeff Arbus, and the other three members are Paddy Musson, Donna Mese, and Delynne Struyk.

As a partial-load faculty member, you can contribute to a pension plan for your retirement years. After 24 months of employment as a faculty member, in any capacity , even with interruptions , you will be invited to join the CAAT-A pension plan. For instance, if you were employed by the college in January, 2004, and also happened to be employed by the college in January, 2006 (regardless of where you were in between), you would be eligible to join the pension plan.

If you opt into the pension plan, you begin to make contributions, matched dollar for dollar by the employer. Once you have contributed to the plan for two years (in other words, four years after your initial hiring), your pension is “vested”, or guaranteed.

The amount of the pension you will receive upon retirement is estimated every year in a statement from the CAAT Pension Plan. As you continue to teach and contribute to the plan, your annual retirement pension increases. 

Should you terminate employment with the college, you can either leave your money in the pension plan for use at pension time or take it with you — all 100% — in a LIRA (locked-in retirement account).

Partial-load employees are eligible for paid sick-leave which is calculated on the basis of weekly teaching hours and the overall length of the contract. The table in Article 26.08 B provides the details.

Sick leave credits are cumulative, and you can use the days banked in your account as needed, with certain restrictions. For instance, if you are re-hired within six months of the end of any contract or have a written contract for future employment, your sick-leave benefits will be bridged to the next employment period.

You are entitled to pay for a statutory holiday if it falls on a day you would normally have worked and if you attend work on your regularly scheduled work days immediately prior to and following that statutory holiday. For instance, if you normally work on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you will be paid for the Good Friday holiday if you work the previous Wednesday and the following Monday.

• Tuition Subsidy (Article 12) : Partial-load employees have access to a Tuition Subsidy which permits faculty members to register in courses at their college for only $20.
• Leaves of Absence (Article 21) : Leaves of absence, both paid and unpaid, for personal, health, religious, and legal reasons are available to partial-load faculty. For instance, you will receive your regular pay if you are required to appear for or serve jury duty. As well, you can request leave with pay for religious reasons.
• Pregnancy and Parental Leave (Article 22) : a Supplementary Unemployment Benefit Plan is available to partial-load employees who are eligible to receive Employment Insurance for pregnancy or parental leave.
• Prepaid Leave (Article 23) : Partial-load faculty can finance a leave by deferring regular salary for future use.
• Article 26.07 of the Collective Agreement provides details regarding participation, eligibility, waiting periods, and benefit levels for these rights.

Because OPSEU wants to represent partial-load faculty effectively, your input is Important . This can happen best when partial-load members get involved in their union local's activities. To influence the direction of collective bargaining, members must present their demands for debate and voting at their local's Demand Setting Meeting. Your bargaining team can bring to the table only those demands passed both at locals and at the provincial Demand Setting Meeting. In addition to attending your local union meetings, please feel free to contact OPSEU's CAAT-A Divisional Executive (c/o its chair, Paddy Musson)and / or Local 560 with your ideas. We welcome your suggestions about the content of this web page, as well as your suggestions for improvements to the Collective Agreement.