In what is probably the first-ever two-day training offered fully online by OPSEU/SEFPO, College Support activists have upped their game with job classification grievances.
The College Support Joint Classification Committee (JCC) team facilitated the event, drawing from their many years of expertise to deliver an in-depth look at process and best practices.
Participants included 18 members from six different colleges, and seven Staff Representatives, from Regions 3, 4, 6 and 7. Together with the Region 1, 2 and 5 members and staff who took the course pre-pandemic are part of a growing multitude of OPSEU/SEFPO activists taking on Ontario college management and demanding fair wages and recognition of their work through the grievance process.
Everyone who participated in the training had the chance to experience interviewing members for classification grievance purposes, as well as preparing for and conducting step one grievances. They became familiar with the full complexity of the resources needed to properly evaluate a college support job description and enjoyed sharing stories from the job classification trenches.
The JCC team worked together with the OPSEU/SEFPO Member Education Unit to develop the course, and then adapt it to an online format. The course was the brainchild of the JCC, who recognized the urgency of training up the front-line members and staff to take on this growing need.
The College Support Level One: Classification Grievances course will be offered in French in February. Level Two focuses on preparing for expedited arbitration and will roll out across the regions in 2021.
