Our next general membership meeting (GMM), previously set for March 7th, has been rescheduled to Tuesday, April 30th, from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. The timing change was chosen to make sure we can report back to you on any important news that emerges at the coming Final Demand Set meeting in late March and the provincial OPSEU convention at the end of April.
At the next GMM in April, we will also be holding our elections to choose the local executive committee (LEC) who will be representing your interests for the next two years. This important exercise is a great chance to introduce new blood and ideas into the leadership of your local.
In the coming weeks, we will be putting out a call for nominations and explaining the roles in your local executive, including the very important job of local stewards. For some of the executive positions, there is release time available from your other duties if you are full-time. For partial load faculty, there may be other types of compensation considered. In the meantime, if you have any questions about your LEC, the work we do and what’s involved with participating, please contact any member of the current local executive.
Local demand set meeting identifies top bargaining priorities
Earlier this month, we held our own local demand set meeting online as part of the initial steps towards determining our most crucial issues for the next round of bargaining with the College Employer Council (CEC). This meeting allowed us to highlight our local demand set survey results and add any new concerns that were brought up. The combined final top 10 set of demands from our local (in order of priority) are as follows:
- Wages (keeping pace with inflation and other educators)
- Benefits (increased caps for optical, improved bridging of partial load benefits, retiree benefits)
- Intellectual property rights (no forced sharing of teaching materials)
- Full-time workload (proper capture of all hours, especially admin tasks and student assistance)
- Hours of work (shift premiums for late classes and weekends, preferential scheduling rights)
- Program coordinator duties (defined duties and sufficient SWF time)
- Shared governance (right to determine teaching methodologies)
- Academic freedom (right to determine evaluations and course materials)
- Partial load job security (equal pay with full-time and longer contracts)
- Full-time job security (more full-time hires, no contracting out of faculty work to admin or support staff)
These demands will be considered, along with the demands from the other 23 Ontario colleges, at the final demand set meeting in Toronto, March 22-23. A delegation of 10 of your colleagues will be attending that meeting either in person or virtually to ensure your concerns remain a priority.