The contract offer put forward by the College Employer Council on November 6 is a bad one for faculty – and the students we teach. It entrenches inequity and takes us backwards on academic freedom.
Here’s why all faculty should vote NO:
- This offer allows the colleges to continue to expand the pool of contract faculty without restriction. More precarious work is not a better plan for our colleges.
- This offer allows the colleges to avoid paying “equal pay for equal work” for contract faculty, even after the passing of Bill 148, The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act.
- This offer will decrease the percentage of full-time jobs in the colleges. Faculty are fighting for a 50:50 ratio of permanent to contract staff; the colleges’ offer fails to create a path to permanent jobs for partial-load faculty, and it denies students the better education that comes with a stable workforce.
- By removing the cap on teaching weeks and overtime for full-time faculty, this offer allows the employer to move work from partial-load faculty to full-timers. This will mean fewer teaching hours available for partial-load faculty.
- This offer does nothing to recognize that faculty need academic freedom to safeguard education quality for our students.
- The Return-to-Work protocol included in this offer includes much of the same language included in the 2006 protocol. That protocol left thousands of faculty without a penny in return for their return-to-work overtime hours.
- The colleges have forced a vote on an offer that is filled with concessions and still does nothing to address academic freedom.
- The best way for the colleges to reach a collective agreement is to negotiate, not to force a vote on an offer that has already been rejected by the faculty bargaining team.
We will Vote NO because it will make the colleges stronger, better for students, and better for the next generation. We will vote NO because we love our students, we value education, and we care.
One day longer. One day stronger. Vote NO!
In solidarity,
Your college faculty bargaining team