banner-forward_together.jpg (2425 bytes)  OPSEU Local 560
 To:  All Members of OPSEU Local 560
From: OPSEU Local 560 President Ted Montgomery
Date: January 29, 2001
Subject: Updates
Professional Development Leave (Sabbatical)

Those of you who receive and read the Employee HelpDesk e-mails will have received notice of Professional Development (PD) Leave applications. I am writing to be sure the everyone who is entitled to apply receives proper notice.

For faculty, PD Leave is provided for in the contract. Details are set out in Article 20. In brief, the College must provide PD Leaves (sabbaticals) for a minimum of 2 percent of faculty who have at least six years with the College — plus an additional one percent for those with fifteen years. Seniority (since one’s last PD Leave) is used to determine who gets leave if there are more applications than the minimum.

For leaves commencing September 1, 2001, or during that academic year, applications need to be in by March 1, 2001. If you did not get an application form, they are available through Katharine Janzen’s office at the Center for Professional Development. Completed forms are sent to Vice-President Nimmi Pitt’s office.

Rates of pay and terms of faculty PD Leaves are detailed in Article 20 of the Collective Agreement. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to call the union office at 416-495-1599.

This information was disseminated, as far as we can tell, by the internal college email system only. The College’s exclusive reliance on a medium that not every faculty member has access to is disheartening and improper. Not every faculty member has access to the email system. This is even more the case with support staff who have similar leave entitlements. It is not right and certainly not fair to deny these employees an equal access to important employment-related information.

Annual General Meeting

New Location
The Annual General Meeting of local 560 will take place on Thursday, February 15th at 6:00 p.m. at the Holiday Inn at 7095 Woodbine Avenue (east side), just north of Steeles. The meeting will be in the Ellesmere East Room, and a light dinner of sandwiches and drinks will be available from 5:30.

It has become more and more difficult for members to get to the meeting place we have used for the past few years, at the Ontario Federation of Labour building, because of increasing traffic build-up on the Don Valley Parkway. Accordingly, we are going to try this location just north of the Newnham campus hoping that access will be easier for more members. We used this location in 1989, when it was a Chimo Hotel.

Dues Increase
OPSEU is proposing a dues increase to be voted on at the Convention in April. The Union’s Constitution requires that prior to any dues increase the issue must be brought before the membership to seek their input. Currently, OPSEU dues are set at 1.325 per cent of salary. The proposal being put forward by the OPSEU Executive Board is an increase of 0.15 per cent to 1.475 per cent. The proposed budget indicates a deficit if $5.6 million without the increase and the increase is expected to generate and additional $3.6 million. The deficit has been attributed to falling revenues due to a shrinking public service under the Harris Government as well as to increased costs.

Our local sends 4 delegates to the Convention. They will be voting on the proposed dues increase. At our AGM, I will be providing further details about the proposed increase and the OPSEU Budget. This meeting will be your opportunity to provide our delegates with your views, so that they can shared them with other Convention delegates from across the province, as well as to inform their own voting.

Please note that this is an OPSEU initiative, not a Local 560 dues change. Local 560 dues were reduced last year at our 2000 AGM.

Local 560 Budget
The AGM is also the meeting where every local is required to present its local budget for the membership’s approval. Local 560 stewards have already approved a budget proposal which will not be affected by the OPSEU dues level. The Local contingency (strike pay) fund remains healthy, and no change to local dues is anticipated for this year. It is important for members to have a say in how the local allocates its expenses, and this meeting is your chance to do just that.

Negotiations

There’s not a whole lot to tell you yet about bargaining. As you may know, I was re-elected to the bargaining team and asked to chair once again. We have not yet met with the management side, but we have told them that we want a much faster resolution to this round. So, you will be hearing about how things are going throughout the spring summer & fall. Compensation issues – salary & benefits – are the top priority, with the quality of education and workload issues also at the top of the agenda. All of the Local 560 demands were supported provincially and will be part of the union’s tabled position.

It is good to know that the local leadership in 560 is strong enough that I can be away at bargaining for significant time, and still be confident that our members are being well served and represented. I’ll still be around and working in the local much of the time, but as negotiations become more intense and time-consuming that will be more difficult. We have freed up more hours for Larry Olivo, the Vice-President, to be more available, and he and I are in touch on just about every issue.

By the AGM, I should have more to report on bargaining and will do so then.

Ted Montgomery, President OPSEU Local 560