The dedicated faculty represented by OPSEU/SEFPO in Ontario’s 24 public colleges are negotiating a new collective agreement. JP Hornick, chair of the bargaining team, lays out the issues and challenges facing our financially starved college system – and what the government must do to ensure colleges, and college students, can underpin the province’s economic recovery.
COVID-19 required bringing education online – and created overwhelming workloads for already overburdened faculty. Students deserve rich, meaningful content – not curriculum created on the cheap. A job done well demands time, and college administrators must give faculty the time they need to give students curriculum and tools that respond to their needs. And administrators must give guarantees to the 75 per cent of faculty on part-time, precarious contracts that all their work will be compensated – as is just and right.
