Strike vote date changed to Sept. 25!
Your faculty bargaining team had planned a strike vote on Aug 28. As expected, however, management requested that the OLRB (Ontario Labour Relations Board) set our vote on a date of their choosing: Sept. 12. Instead of engaging in this debate, your team chose Sept. 25 as the best alternate date to conduct the vote. The management team agreed not to oppose this date.
As a condition of the change, management has agreed that the provisions of the existing collective agreement will remain in effect until September 25 and that terms and conditions of employment will not be unilaterally imposed before that date.
This assurance removes the threat of imposition (as occurred in 2009) — a key reason a strike vote was planned prior to the expiry of the contract. The other key reason was to provide pressure for a settlement before Aug. 31. Changing the date of the vote means that management should now respect the commitment they had made to the bargaining dates until Aug. 31.
With the Sept. 25 vote, faculty can now focus on our students at the beginning of the semester, as usual. The new vote date also ensures that faculty will be back on campus, allowing your bargaining team to interact more fully with the membership during the critical final days of bargaining.
As well, newly-hired full-time and partial-load faculty will have time to participate meaningfully in negotiations and to acquaint themselves with the bargaining issues in the context of their work environment.
Ongoing contract negotiations will increase the prospect of reaching a fair and equitable settlement at the bargaining table — a goal that continues to guide the decisions of your team. If management is serious about this process and decides to address the important issues identified by faculty, instead of a strike vote on Sept. 25, we could be voting on a tentative settlement.
To read previous issues of your Bargaining Bulletin please visit www.collegefaculty.org
- Issue 7, July 2014 – Job Security
- Issue 6, June 2014 – Faculty Workload
- Issue 5, June 2014 – Bargaining for Partial-Load Faculty
- Issue 4, May 2014 – Bargaining Dates
- Issue 3, April 2014 – You spoke, we heard!
- Issue 2, March 2014 – Pre-bargaining survey results
- Issue 1, January 2014 – Want to improve your college?
In solidarity,
The CAAT-A Bargaining Team:
David Fasciano
Bargaining Team Chair,
Local 673, Collège Boréal
Lynn Dee Eason
Bargaining Team Vice-Chair,
Local 613, Sault College
Darryl Bedford
Local 110, Fanshawe College
Jonathan Singer
Local 560, Seneca College
Lana-Lee Hardacre
Local 237, Conestoga College
Audrey Taves
Local 562, Humber College
Bert Dubé
Local 732, Confederation College
Contact us:
[email protected]
facebook.com/OntarioCollegeFaculty
collegefaculty.org
@CAATfaculty
Your 2014 Bargaining Bulletin in authorized for distribution by:
Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President, Ontario Public Service Employees Union
and
Dave Fasciano, Chair, CAAT Academic Bargaining Team