By Pat Mongeon, OPSEU Local 354 President
Welcome back to a new academic year. I wish you all a smooth start-up, and I want to let you know the local stewards and officers are here to support you.
I am very honoured to serve and represent our faculty at Durham College and I work with an amazing group of people. I would like to thank the former members of the local who contributed their time and efforts to support the faculty during these challenging times. Thankfully, more faculty have stepped up as stewards tf contribute their time to protect our labour rights. I would like to thank the officers who give so much of their time to stand up for your rights. They are: Deb Tsagris – V.P., ASC rep; Phil Raby – Secretary, website and social media coordinator; Dave Smith – Chief Steward, partial load rep; and Bill Chilton – Treasurer, Health and Safety rep and steward for Whitby full-time and partial load faculty.
We also have a great group of stewards. I am grateful they have stepped up to join the local. They are: Katie Flynn – focus health and safety and WMG support; Andrea Leskowski-Grubb – health and safety; Annette Patrick – workload monitoring; Bryan Jordan – new member support, partial load faculty; Greg Moran – Whitby faculty support, Health and Safety committee; and Omar Salim – School of IS steward.
New Hires
Starting with some good news, we had 30 faculty retirements at Durham College last spring and 27 full-time hires. Our stewards will be reaching out to help the new full-time faculty to sign their union cards to join our local.
ALL FACULTY and STAFF ACTION REQUEST – One Minute of your day.
I have attached a link from Divex it is a letter to help support the Contract faculty unionization drive. We need everyone to take action at Durham to sign and share with other staff to sign to hear our collective voice. It is one minute of your time to support this campaign.
Please click on the link below. Thank you.
As the school year begins, the CAAT-Academic Divisional Executive, supported by campaigns staff, and 15andFairness, have launched another campaign to force the counting of the part-time unionization drive ballots.
Please take a moment to sign the letter and, if possible, to disseminate to all your networks. Thank you for your support.
https://www.15andfairness.org/fairness_for_contract_faculty?sp_ref=511253722.392.199066.f.0.2
Local Durham College update
We are concerned with the scheduling of some faculty for evening classes. The Collective Agreement (CA) has specific items to address timetable and schedules, such as Article 11.01 L1, L2, L3
Brief summary:
· Your contact day shall not exceed eight hours L1
· Every effort shall be made to ensure that work will not be assigned to begin less than 12 hours after the end of the previous day’s work assignment. L2
· Work shall not normally be assigned on calendar Saturdays or Sundays. The teacher shall be credited with one and one-half the credit hours normally given for so assigned and attributed. L 3
If you have questions, please refer to our website and reach out to your steward.
If you would like a hard copy of the collective agreement please visit us in our union office in the South Village. Alternately you can obtain an online copy on this website.
Please refer to our website https://opseu354.ca/, for the steward for your school, along with our Facebook page, Twitter account and contact information.
This year I ask that you do your part to exercise your rights by speaking up about infringements of your rights.
Connect with your steward so we can voice your concerns, and you will have our support if you choose to grieve and I assure you: Our team will support you to protect your labour rights. I took on this job because I believe in the work we all do and its importance to our students’ lives, our labour movement and our society.
In Solidarity,
Pat Mongeon
President, OPSEU Local 354