York University unions support Ontario college faculty members in bargaining

TORONTO, Sept. 20, 2017 /CNW/ - The Cross-Campus Alliance at York University sends its solidarity to the 12,000 members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU)'s College Academic Division who are currently in bargaining with their employer, College Employer Council.

Over the past two decades, we have witnessed a rise in the number of precarious contract faculty positions in both the university and college sectors to the point that currently 81 percent of the college teaching positions are performed by underpaid contract faculty. These are positions with little to no job security which are paid a fraction of the rate for full-time faculty, yet the colleges refuse to care about the security of thousands of contract faculty – and the stability hundreds of thousands of college students need.

On September 14, full-time and partial-load faculty (including instructors, librarians and professors) at Ontario's 24 public colleges voted to give a strong strike mandate vote (68 per cent voted in favour) to the CAAT-A bargaining team to go back to the negotiating table.

JP Hornick, the chair of the CAAT-A Bargaining Team, recently explained how college faculty from across Ontario debated and voted on 16 proposals to improve the quality and fairness of the college system in Ontario. They are opposing the employer's proposed freeze on hiring preference for full-time faculty positions, the wage offer that would lock them into a 1.875 per cent wage increase until 2021, and the employer's unwillingness to enforce the pay for equal work provision under the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017 (Bill 148), which is expected to pass this fall. The union is also calling for a more meaningful inclusion of faculty in the academic decision making processes of the colleges. Hornick said of the 16 proposals: "Since bargaining started 10 weeks ago, management has ignored every single one of them".

We call on the College Employer Council to bargain in good faith and meet the fair demands of the college faculty and we urge the York University community to sign the petition to improve the learning and teaching environment of Ontario's public colleges. The petition can be found here: http://www.collegefaculty.org/petition.

The York University Cross-Campus Alliance consists of campus labour and student unions, including CUPE 1356 and 3903, the York Federation of Students, the York University Graduate Students' Association, the York University Faculty Association and the York University Staff Association.

SOURCE York University Cross-Campus Alliance

Mina Rajabi Paak ([email protected])