Today, we head back to the table for our first bargaining dates with the employer. Our proposals come directly out of what we’ve heard from you, and thousands of other members, about the changes we need to see in our workplace and our contract to meet the current moment.
To make those changes reality, our job now is to put as much pressure on the employer as we possibly can.
Every Wednesday we’re in bargaining – including this week – we’re asking members to wear blue in solidarity with their bargaining team! It’s a small but powerful way to show the employer that we’re building a united front.
Send a photo of you and your colleagues to [email protected] and post it to social media to amplify that message!
We need to stand shoulder to shoulder because this will not be an easy bargaining round. Our sector faces an unprecedented crisis, accelerated by government neglect and failures of management we’re sitting across the table from.
Lack of provincial action on the crisis has sent a message not just to our members – who are experiencing the most precarious time to work at an Ontario college in history – but also to students, whose futures are being interrupted by cuts and closures.
The message is: among this government’s priorities, public education is bottom of the list, and peoples’ futures are fair game as collateral to pay for bad decisions at the top.
In unprecedented times, we need to act in unprecedented ways. And what we can win at the table, more than ever before, depends on the power we build together.
We’re inviting every member to join us for our first Bargaining Town Halls on Monday, June 23rd – either at 12:00 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. – to discuss progress and the table talk about what you can do on your campus to help us win.
Register below for one the following virtual Town Halls now:
These are tough times, no doubt about it. We’ve seen our people let go in droves while administrators and college presidents pocket salary increases of 10-30%.
The employer keeps us disorganized through this environment of fear, pitting department against department, full-time against part-time, campus against campus.
We can acknowledge the fear and uncertainty, so long as we don’t stay there. The stakes are far too high for inaction.
Fear is the oldest tactic in the boss’ playbook, and has only one antidote: banding together around a plan of action that ensures we take on the crises of our time together.
Hope for a better tomorrow is not a lottery ticket, it’s a shove out the door. It’s a call to action – to step outside our comfort zone, to commit ourselves to a future different from the present, and to do everything in our power to get there. Is that something you can help do?
Because if we’re going to protect jobs and preserve public education for generations to come, it’ll take all of us – including, and especially you.
Solidarity,
Your College Support Full-Time Bargaining Team:
Christine Kelsey, Local 416 (Chair)
Shelley Gartshore, Local 124 (Vice-Chair)
Veronica Attard, Local 416
Dan Brisson, Local 672
Bob Holder, Local 243
Dana Leaman, Local 241
Xiaoyan Wang, Local 561