Your union representatives, Debbie Rautins, President, and Dave Smith, Communications Officer, recently requested a meeting with management to discuss partial load faculty at Durham. On February 22nd, we met with Scott Blakey, Durham’s Vice President, Human Resources.
Our local tracks partial load numbers. In recent semesters, the number of partial load faculty has increased dramatically, from 24 in the winter, 2012 semester, to 34 in the fall, 2012 semester, and to 60 in the current, winter 2013, semester. Partial load faculty are fully recognized members of our local union, enjoying much improved pay and employment security benefits when compared to sessional and part time contract faculty.
We expressed to Vice President Blakey our strong commitment to on-going partial load seniority and job security. As our current collective agreement states, partial load faculty are entitled to continuing teaching security for courses they have taught in the previous semester as partial load.
We also expressed our strong opposition to on-going sessional employment at our college and the local’s intention to grieve increases in sessional contracts if they occur (as our collective agreement allows). Vice President Blakey stated that Durham College management, including President Don Lovisa, are committed to increasing the number of partial load faculty. He also stated that any future increases in sessional contracts will be a stepping stone only, as a way to reduce the amount of part time contracts going forward.
It was also agreed upon that partial load faculty will no longer be told that they will not be eligible to receive additional partial load contracts in future. In fact, Vice President Blakey alluded to possibly establishing a formal, recurring partial load compliment (if financial considerations allow).