October 28, 2013
From left: Lana Lee Hardacre, Dave Fasciano, JP Lamarche, Audrey Taves, Darryl Bedford, Lynn Dee Eason, Jonathan Singer
On October 26 and 27, members from every college local throughout Ontario met to prepare for bargaining in 2014 and elected a new bargaining team. Members were full of energy as college by college they highlighted the massive problems they are facing in their fight for a high quality post-secondary education system. President Smokey Thomas brought greetings and promised OPSEU’s full support as they lead into bargaining their new collective agreement which expires August 31, 2014. Florry Foster, Chair of the CAAT Support Division also pledged to work very closely with CAAT Faculty and conveyed a strong message of solidarity from her members who also face the same expiry date in 2014.
Florry Foster, Chair of CAAT Support Divisional Executive with Benoit Dupuis, Chair of CAAT Faculty Divisional Executive.
Other speakers included Randy Robinson, OPSEU Political Economist and Kevin Mackay, Mohawk College professor and Coordinator of the OPSEU faculty sponsored Campaign for Quality Education. Members are extremely supportive of this campaign and are anxious to read the upcoming Report on College Education coming out of the visits to 24 Ontario colleges. Local union reports highlighted the common struggles members are facing in their colleges: the cannibalization of programs, staffing grievances, workload abuses, so-called blended learning, increasing use of non-full-time faculty, academic freedom, more and more academic decisions made without faculty consultation or input, and the list goes on…
Members of the newly elected team are as follows: Darryl Bedford, Local 110(Fanshawe); Dave Fasciano, Local 673(Boréal); Lynn Dee Eason, Local 613 (Sault); Lana Lee Hardacre, Local 237 (Conestoga); JP Lamarche, local 415 (Algonquin); Jonathan Singer, Local 560 (Seneca);Audrey Taves, Local 562 (Humber). Alternate team members are: Ed Larocque, Local 556 (George Brown) and Bert Dube, Local 732 (Confederation).
