OPSEU Local 560

The next few years are going to mark a critical juncture in the history of the Community College system in Ontario.  You’ll find in this issue of The Local, articles that pertain to several of the factors that are going to have a profound impact on our work and the education services we deliver.

STAFFING
We all know about the double cohort.  It’s just two years away, and this government hasn’t made the necessary commitment to fund and to prepare those institutions that are going to have to deal with those students.  Bigger rooms and upgraded facilities are not going to alleviate the inevitable problems that everyone — students, teachers, staff and administration will face.  The resources have not been committed, and the recent provincial economic downturn can only make matters worse.

Like many of you, I’m a part of the hiring boom from the early  years of the Colleges.  And, like many of you, I’m of that age where pension and retirement plans are no longer a distant vision.  In fact, as you will read in The Local, 65% of Seneca’s faculty will be eligible to retire by 2006, and 35% will be able to do so with unreduced pension. Experience has shown that, based on these numbers, we can count on about one half of the faculty leaving by that time.  If we were unique in this, replacement wouldn’t be too much of a problem.  But every educational institution faces the same  conundrum.  And that’s not all.

A Human Resources Development Canada funded study determined that Seneca would need an additional 120 new full-time faculty to handle enrolment increases. In total, that’s well over 300 new faculty in five years.  To secure those faculty, we will be competing with every other college and university, as well as with the secondary schools for good teachers, counsellors, and librarians.  Finding and holding the best people is going to be an enormous challenge over the next five years.  Further, at the same time, we’ll need to hire replacement managers and support staff in similar numbers.

I spoke recently with a senior government judicial official who, like me, has a child now in grade eleven.  He wondered just how far afield he was going to have to send his child to escape the consequences of what is surely going to happen to post-secondary education in this province.

NEW COLLEGE LEGISLATION
On December 4th, the Government tabled Bill 147, the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Act, 2001.  It will operate in conjunction with the existing Colleges Collective Bargaining Act and will govern operational activities of each College — essentially by giving the Board of Governors, and thereby the president, at each College greater scope to set their own course without the existing provincial guidance and supervision of the Council of Regents.  That body will be replaced by another whose functions will be collective bargaining, and human resource duties "as prescribed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council."

There is no telling where the Colleges will end up under this more open system. Bill 147 still  requires them to deliver adult vocational education and training, apprenticeship, and basic skills & literacy; and to conduct applied research. The Colleges may carve out niches in the post-secondary academic spectrum, or they may just carve up each other.  There seems to no longer be any central coordination of program offerings.
Seneca’s new president has some "challenges," as they like to call them, ahead.  Here’s hoping he’s up to the task.

THE NEW SENECA PRESIDENT
Very soon after Rick Miner was appointed as Seneca College President, he invited me to meet with him.  He did the same with Janice Hagan, the Support Staff Local President.  Miner had not yet had a chance to really get acquainted with Seneca, but it was clear that he intended to so and saw the union representatives as an integral part of the process.  President Miner himself invited us to get in touch with  the union representatives back at the University of New Brunswick with whom he had worked before as a Vice-President of that institution.

I pointed out to him that the union had advised the presidential search consultant that Seneca needed a fresh approach, especially someone from outside the college, and probably outside the system.  We recommended a person with academic administrative experience, preferably from the university sector and with a commitment to academic over entrepreneurial pursuits.  President Miner noted that he fit our criteria.  I think it’s good grounds for my usual cautious optimism regarding such changes at Seneca. We certainly anticipate a more enlightened, progressive, and respectful relationship, given the changes in the office of the president and the director of human resources. 

On December 6, The Local interviewed Seneca’s new president, Rick Miner, in his office at Newnham Campus. Our questions were composed from suggestions submitted by stewards.

If you didn’t have to be here right now doing this interview, working at Seneca -- where would you really like to be this week?

Well, you start off with the hard ones. Where would I like to be? Probably travelling somewhere where I haven't been before. Although I find I've done an awful lot of travelling and I've found one of the nice things about the last couple of years, I haven't had to do as much —  because I was ending up going back to the same places over and over and over again. It was just an extended business trip, and then when you got back, everything that you'd missed was still waiting for you. So there was a lot of catching up to do.

But I always enjoy going to new places, seeing new things and, in many ways, that's been one of the excitements about Seneca because I spent the first four months going and visiting faculty and visiting departments and visiting campuses. We really have some exciting new things going on. So that was fun.
Could you tell us a bit about your family?

My wife and I are in Toronto. My wife's from Cape Breton and, as you probably know, I was originally from the States and moved up to Canada about 25 years ago.

We have four kids. One is in Toronto. She got a couple of certificates from Mohawk for the visually impaired, orientational ability. And she's working for an organization called Balance which is similar to CNIB. So she's been here a couple of years. Our other kids are all out in Vancouver. One is a high- school teacher, one's finishing her Masters in pathology, and one's finishing an undergraduate degree in photography. So, a little diversity.

Who are your heroes?

Who are my heroes? … I have a lot of respect for people like Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau, I think, did a lot of things that really pushed Canada into the international arena. He made a lot of tough decisions. He's very articulate. He was not… he was political but he wasn't political, certainly not in the same way you would say that Chrétien is in terms of politics. I would also.. people like Ed Broadbent who really pushed a social cause, never got elected but was probably one of your more respected politicians. And I'll cover the gamut with Stanfield from Nova Scotia, the best premier we never had, the best prime minister we never had - a very honest guy, very hard working. He was not somebody that did well in the media, but he was a good guy.

What’s the best book you’ve read recently?

I'm going to switch it slightly. It's not a book. There's a wonderful article by Peter Drucker in one of the recent Economists that really looks at the nature of society in the next couple of decades and looks at how we move into technological training, technological education. And if people haven't read it, it's worth a read. It's very good. I'm not sure I agree with everything he says, but he pushes some of the concepts and makes people rethink what we're doing, particularly in the college system or any post-secondary education system.

You come from a university background. What attracted you to seek the position of president of a community college?

 Oh, I think there's a couple of answers to that. The one is that I think that colleges are the solution to the training and education problems in this century. As you said, I was in universities for 25 years. And universities did some things particularly well. Other things they didn't do particularly well. They are not structured, nor do they have the culture, to respond to shorter-term training needs, shifts in the market. They’ve tried to do that largely through their continuing-education faculties, I don't think particularly successfully, because there's always that pull between what the traditional university sees in terms of education and what the employer and the student sees in terms of their personal training, their personal careers. I think the colleges have a much better — and they're doing it now, its not that they aren't doing it — but I think the rate of change will increase, and the colleges are in a better position to respond to that change, and I think that they can satisfy the need a lot better.

The second part of it is, "Why Seneca?"  I think, of all the colleges, Seneca is positioned best to take on a national role in terms of post-secondary education and advanced applied education or college education in general.

Did you have experience with college systems elsewhere before coming to Seneca?

Yah, a reasonable amount. When I was in New Brunswick, and I was the head of the St.  John campus, one of our desires was to create a number of articulated arrangements with colleges. At the time I left, we probably had forty articulated arrangements. Most of them were in some facet of business, some facet of tourism, or some element of health science. As a result of that, I got to know the college system, at least in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, a little bit in Ontario, probably better than most people. Also, in the Nova Scotia system, one of my best friends is in charge of the Nova Scotia system, so he and I had a chance to talk about colleges quite a bit over the years.

So I think I knew them, but the Ontario system is not the same as other places in Canada. There is certainly a size issue, but there’s also the breadth issue, and an almost philosophical issue. There's still a Gen Ed part in Ontario that you don't find in New Brunswick and limited in Nova Scotia. So it's a long-winded answer. But I knew something about it. I sure have learned a hell of a lot more over the last four months.

Do you see a difference between university students and college students?

I'm starting to. I went to our convocation, and the emotion of the students at convocation at Seneca was far greater. It was a different kind of emotion too. It was a personal emotion of satisfaction. Where in university you get an emotion of completion, you get an emotion of a kind of friendship, but you don't get the same intense emotion of satisfaction that I think I saw at convocation.

Where do you see this college in five years?

I don't know. I think the process we're undertaking now in terms of consulting with people certainly will have a large role in where we want to go. We've got —  and I may be pre-judging something else you'll ask me, but I’ll do it anyway —  we have a unique opportunity and we have a chance to redefine, or else to reconfirm, what we're doing. Two days ago, the government put Bill 147 into the legislature which will allow our boards of governors to have a lot more discretion in terms of many things, not only the programming side, but the recruitment side, the real-estate side, to some degree the tuition in non-regulated programs. We have the pilot program in applied degrees and we've put in two of those for the December competition, We'll put presumably two more in for the May competition.

We have new legislation — it's kind of in, but the rules haven't been laid out yet — that is going to allow for universities from outside Ontario to come into Ontario and offer programs. They can be either public institutions from other provinces, or they can be private institutions from other countries. This is going to create a whole new level of competition. I know some people don't like the word competition, but the reality is that some of the U.S. institutions who will be in here for sure are going to be competing directly with us and with the universities in programs that we hold near and dear.

And the other element that's less public now — I think people know it, and we'll be giving people information about it shortly — is that we could have a 35 to 40% turnover in faculty and staff at Seneca in the next five years. And the question is, you obviously are going to replace these people, and you obviously, because of the double cohort, are going to have to even add more people.

So now is the time to ask yourselves the question, "Well, where do we add them? How do we add them?" You know, "Who do we add?" And I think that's going to be driven by the consultative process that we launch in January and February, where we're going to be asking Senecans, you know, "What do you think?", "Where should we go?" "Should we be getting into more degrees?", "Shouldn’t we be getting into more degrees?", "Should we be expanding our catchment area?", "Should we try to be a national institution?" Because there's not a national college.

There's not a national college. I kind of think there should be. I think Seneca could be it. If everybody else doesn't think that's a great idea, than I can live with that too. [laughs] But I think Seneca can take a national role in post-secondary education. And if people agree with me, that's something I'd like to work towards.

At the end of your tenure, how would you like to be remembered by Senecans?  What legacy would you like to leave for the College?

I guess in my working history, the thing I've appreciated the most is when people said, after I left, "You know I really enjoyed working here. It was a good place to work." And if whenever I leave, five, eight, ten years from now, then people said, "You know, we had a lot of fun. We did a lot of things I can be proud of." So, it's not the specifics that concern me as much as the feelings. Where people say, "Yah, we really did that." I mean, if it’s a national university, it’s a national university. If it's not, it's not, you know  — or a national college, sorry. So I would like, when it's over, that people have felt that they did something they were proud of and that they were poised to do something even better with others.

Some people kind of run an organization into the ground for the short term, and I think that’s a mistake. That's one of the problems businesses are having right now. They've built these very elaborate bonus systems that are all based on short-term performance and, as a result, decisions get to be short term, and the managers come and go, and I don’t like that. That’s poor management: I think you have to look longer. At times, that upsets people because they want shorter-term change and they want things to turn around "real quick". That hasn't, in my experience, been good for long term.

The government is going to introduce a new "charter" amending some of the ways the colleges do business.  Part of the changes might include restricting province-wide collective bargaining and opening up more college-by-college negotiations over at least some issues.  What are your views on the decentralizing of bargaining?

The legislature, at least I'm aware of, won't make the change now. I suspect there will be a change at some point, whether it's 10 years from now or 20 years from now. I guess it's how are we able to handle the obvious differences that exist between the colleges in Ontario. In some ways, I've been amazed that both the union and the administration have been able to bargain through these differences and come to agreements. So something must be right.

And I don't pretend to know the system well enough to know all the aspects to it. But when I kind of look as a new person, I sit and I say, "My goodness, are the situations in Toronto the same as the situations in North Bay? Are the situations in an institution the size of Seneca the same as the institution's that's considerably smaller? Are the situations different in an organization that has 200 different programs and in one that has 20?  And the answer is obviously, yes. There are differences, and they need to be accommodated.

The problem that I see is that if you want to increase meaningful local bargaining or local adjustments — and "meaningful", by that I mean you make substantive changes that have big differences; you don't just tinker on the edges — then the college also has to have the capability on the revenue side because there's no use going in and negotiating new relationships that presumably are going to cost more money if you don't have a way of raising that money.

It will be interesting to see how the government would, at some point, respond to that because it’s got to do one of two things. It's either got to change its formula for distribution of money so that it recognizes some of the differences within the college system or it's got to give the colleges more discretion on the tuition side which is a problem of public policy. Unless they do that, it is difficult to have meaningful local bargaining. I mean you might have — certainly I hope the union and the administration can talk through problems. But, for example in articulated degrees, if we go down that route, there's going to be an issue of workload in articulated degrees, and how do we deal with that?  If we're dealing with one or two degrees, we can probably work through it. But if we end up doing more than that, it's going to require a lot more discussion.

So probably I've talked around the issue maybe more than I meant to. … I'll try to be precise: we are different and we need to have communication open because … more and more as we get competition from private institutions, as we get increased competition from our other colleges with the abolishment of the catchment areas, I think we better be finding out how we work together real well or I think we, as an entity, are going to have problems because we are going to be under attack from others.

The Human Resources Report for Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology foresees big changes in the staffing needs of our colleges. In particular, it reports that between now and 2006 at Seneca College, 390 of our 602 full-time faculty will be eligible for retirement.  Of these, 210 will be eligible for an unreduced retirement.  Similar conditions exist at the universities and secondary schools.  In addition to signaling the need for replacement of retiring faculty, the Report advises us that Seneca will need another 120 faculty, because of the anticipated increase in Seneca student enrolment.
 

• What are we doing at Seneca right now to ensure that we can handle these changes?
• How are we positioning Seneca to compete for full-time teachers, counsellors and librarians in what will be a highly competitive job market?

The human side is the bigger problem. It's a huge problem. Probably some of the things that I may say here go counter to what we have in the Collective Agreement because I'm not sure I really even know. But I think we've got to be looking at different ways of retaining people and we've got to be looking at ways we may be able to continue to use people after they've retired. We need to look at ways we might be able to use other people in our teaching that we haven't historically used.

For example, while we're going through early retirement programs, businesses are too. There are a lot of people in business now that are 50, 55 who have retired, who had a very good career, who don't need a lot of money, but do enjoy being involved. Maybe we should be targeting them. Now what does that mean for the Collective Agreement? I don't know. They may be willing to work part time or they may be willing to work one semester and not another semester because they can't make the same level of commitment as a full timer. Maybe we should be looking at those kind of people.

I think we also need to ask ourselves the question that gets back to an earlier point on the competition, you know, financially. What can we afford?  How can we deal with those issues? We've got a classical economic theory: there's scarcity and there's going to be increased demand and there's going to be increased costs and we're in a system where it's not easy to deal with that. Are there technological ways of approaching some of this? I know Seneca is going through that. I don't feel as conversant with that as maybe I should, but I will be eventually.

We're trying; at least internally, I know that ACAATO did a provincial survey to quantify where we actually stand now, similar to the numbers that you have raised — How many? What areas? Is it automatic retirement or is it optional retirement? — so we can get a better feel for what the actual dimensions are. And that information was just made available to us, I think within the last month or so, fairly recently.  I think we're working, hopefully, with the deans and the schools, starting to work through this and saying, "How do we deal with this?" because I don't pretend to have the solutions to this problem. It's going to be a big problem. But, having said that, I suspect that we're in a better position than most others. That may sound unusual, but I think we're in a better position than other colleges and universities.

The universities have really got themselves boxed in because they have adopted a cookie-cutter model that says you can't be a university prof unless you have a Ph.D., you're a researcher, and you're a teacher; and that's really limited their ability. And their timeline to replace their people is - well, if you take the Ph.D., then you're looking, from a Bachelors, at six years plus.

The colleges may want a Ph.D. here or there; and they may want a Masters here or there; and they may want somebody who's got 20 years experience and a Bachelor's. So they've got more flexibility in terms of their human-resource needs than a university does. And that goes back to one of the early questions you asked about why do you come to a college, and that is because I think the colleges can respond better. I think the universities are going to be in a real problem. When you look at Seneca versus the other colleges, I think we're also probably in a better position. We're certainly more financially stable. We have a larger population. In one way, that creates problems 'cause that's more people to replace, but on the other hand you get a larger base to build on.

Seneca has traditionally tried to serve its community by offering programs to students not only at the diploma, and post-diploma level, but also preparatory programs for students requiring basic upgrading and language development.  How do you see Seneca ensuring that it does not lose sight of those students who need a helping hand in getting started in their college careers?

I think that is the definition of a college to me. I think that the college that abrogates its responsibility for those kinds of developmental programs is making a mistake. It doesn't mean that it can't offer degree programs, but it doesn't do it at the expense of accessibility.

I took my van in to get it checked up a week ago, and the guy who checked me in, said, "Oh, Seneca. What do you do there? " and I said, "On good days, I'm the president. On bad days, it's somebody else's problem." He said, "I want to let you know, I was a university grad" — I'm sorry —  "I was a Seneca grad. I graduated in 1994. I was 20-some years old." He said, "I was a truck driver. I didn't want to be a truck driver I wasn't particularly well educated. I got in. My first semester was absolute hell. I worked my ass off. And two years later, I graduated. I went to work for a bank for a couple of years, and then I made the switch into my current job." He said, "Without Seneca, I never would have been able to do that." And to me, that's the essence of what we're in business for: we're trying to give people choices, you know? You give them choices and you'd like them to always make the right choices and you'd always like them to succeed. Obviously, that doesn't happen. But not to give them the opportunity, I think that's where we make a mistake.

Provincial and Seneca surveys have demonstrated a serious morale problem amongst college faculty, a great many of whom feel frustrated by the deterioration in the quality of the educational services they provide. What are you doing now and what will you be doing to remedy this situation?

Can you give me a little more, uhm, what surveys you're talking about?

[The interviewer referred to Professor Jerry White's Voices From the Classroom (available at http://www.opseu.org/caat/voices.htm) and Local 560/561's Employee Attitude Survey of 1998-99]
It's hard to answer the question without really knowing. Was it workload issues? Was it salary issues?
[In response, the interviewer moved on to the next question.]

One of the principal concerns of Seneca faculty is that over the last several years there has been a reduction in the time available for professional development and curriculum review and development. What will Seneca be doing to provide faculty with the time and resources to ensure the delivery of high calibre programs and academic services?

 I'm not sure I know the situation well enough to answer each specific thing, but I will generalize. What has happened at Seneca is probably the same thing that's happened at Georgian, that's happened at George Brown, that's happened at Centennial, that's happened at York, that's happened at U of T. You've had considerable reduction of government funding and constraints on tuition, and unless Seneca can have some more resources or can figure out how to use those resources better — that may be the case, I don't know — this will be a real challenge.

The information I've seen is that Ontario gives less money per student than any other province in Canada. The tuition is as low as any other place in Canada, maybe with the exception of Quebec and B.C. That creates real difficulty in terms of some of the issues that are raised, whether it's the number of teacher hours — and I still haven't quite understood this, is it SWF? I haven't quite figured out how that works. I’m not sure I want to. [laughs]

The problem with colleges and universities — I fought this when I was out in New Brunswick and I'll be fighting this in Ontario, and I already went to the ministry, and I said that the problem is, "You people can have whatever you want, right? If you want a second-class educational institution, just cut it again, right? 'Cause you can always, always  — some people I'm sure will feel badly with my saying this — you can always provide education with the money you've got. Right? You just hire less qualified people, you just make them do more, you increase the class sizes, you provide less development. And it's a mistake, because our difficulty is we don't have the obvious outcomes that a hospital does. When the lines get long and the people start dying, you know, all of a sudden, you know, politicians get interested, right? [laughs] And somehow, we've either got to figure out how to have more visible outcomes or visible inputs. You know, "Well, I'm sorry, but we can't admit these 1,000 people."

And one of the things the presidents have been talking about: the government hasn't confirmed the 2003 double-cohort funding. And we've said, "Alright, can we all, for once, jump together and say, 'Alright, no money, no admission.' " And just make it painful, you know? I hope you will not get me in trouble with the government with this when you write it up. [laughs] But that's reality. Because unless somebody takes a stand and says, "That's not right.," you know, then they'll continue to cut.

Now, I've taken exception to some of the stuff our association has done. They've gone to the government and they've said, "Look, look," — my figures are probably going to be off slightly — "enrolment has increased 30%, and funding has decreased 40%." I can just see the politicians going, "Great! Isn't that wonderful! I wonder if we can cut a little more?"  You know? Because, you can continue to cut, right? It's only when you really understand the negative consequences of what you do.

So, to go back to one of my earlier questions, if we want to be a national college, then we have to have national standards. And that gets into issues like workload, professional development, class sizes, and everything else that — I don't pretend to know what's best for Seneca, but I do feel that, if we want to take on that kind of role, then we have to be able to hold up a standard that says this is a quality program, and we defend it.
Right now, I think the cuts have put a lot of pressure on everybody... I suspect if you talked to some support staff, they'd say the same thing. And I suspect, believe it or not, you might even have a couple of administrators saying the same thing. So it's an institutional problem; it's not simply one individual's problem or one group's problem. It's a broad problem that, somehow, at the college, we've got to deal with. Now, I think to some extent — at least from what I hear from my counterparts, and I don't purport that this is true, but they seem to think it is — that Seneca has actually been a little better than some of the other colleges.

Finally, what role do you see the faculty union playing at the College?

That's a tough question. A union has a number of roles. I mean, they're a representative group and, clearly one of their jobs is to represent their constituency, protect their constituency, articulate the views of their constituency. In the past, it's my understanding that the union and the administration, let's say, had not dialogued as frequently as one might have liked. [laughs] I've always found that, working with somebody, in most cases, you can work through the problems before they become problems. I've said to both the unions here that, "Hey, come on in. Let's talk about it,  you know, and see if we can work through it."

I think the unions and management better find ways of working really well together, and it doesn’t mean that they'll always going to see eye to eye, because, given all the changes that are happening in the system, if they're not working well together, and at least have some general agreement that they see eye to eye, then I think we're in jeopardy. There are just too many other people that will want to take advantage of that. When the University of Phoenix sets up their distance-ed campus in downtown Toronto, or it probably won't take them long to get up to York, there's going to be a lot of competition, and we've got to be prepared to meet it or else we're going to suffer.

So, it's everybody working together. It's the unions working with management, it's staff working with faculty, it's faculty working with administrators. I've been fortunate, at least in my work career, that I've been in organizations where that's worked very well. I hope that continues at Seneca.  

OPSEU Local 560 would like to welcome the 47 new full-time faculty hired between June and October, 2001.

As new faculty members, you should have received a copy of the CAAT-A Collective Agreement from the College. If you did not receive yours, please contact the union office at 416 495-1599 or at union@opseu560.org.
We hope to meet with as many of you as we can in the near future. We wish you all the best at Seneca.
 

The Local 560 web site has moved to a new easy-to-remember address: http://opseu560.org.

At our web site, you will find information and advice on many matters, including SWFs, the WMG, the grievance process, health and safety, and employment equity. As well, links to the Collective Agreement, prior issues of The Local, the Local 560 "President’s Updates," and other interesting labour and education sites are on our home page.

Our new e-mail address is: union@opseu560.org.

GRIEVANCE UPDATE
We have had a busy fall with both union and individual grievances filed last year coming up for arbitration.  With the departure of Mel Fogel from the college, hard on the heels of Seneca’s former president, Steve Quinlan, we are hopeful that labour relations will improve, or at least become more rational.

DISMISSALS
A dismissal grievance based on inappropriate Internet use continues, with more days of hearing scheduled for the spring.  It is clear that the college failed to examine the situation fully, including health-related issues and  the great stress the employee was under at the time.  Academic VP Tilley’s evidence, in particular, demonstrated just how cavalier and superficial the college’s analysis was in deciding to dismiss the employee.

Another dismissal grievance has been settled. The grievor, resigned from the College, accepting a settlement of $30,000, plus the usual allowances granted on leaving.

SALARY GRIEVANCES
There are a couple of grievances now underway challenging the employee’s initial placement and access to the salary maximum on the salary grid. It has become clear that the college has developed some "policies" that are not supported by the terms of the Collective Agreement. Not surprisingly, these so-called policies are applied to the employees’ detriment.

If you thought that you could grieve your initial salary placement only at the time you were hired, think again.  Each payday gives rise to a right to grieve your salary.  If you think your starting salary might have been calculated inaccurately, call the union office (416 495-1599) or your union steward.  This can be worth thousands to you over time and affects the salary on which your pension is based. The Local 560 web site (http://opseu560.org) provides information on the calculation of salary, along with a copy of the form that the college uses to determine your initial salary step.

In another case, the college has taken the position that the grievor could not advance to the top salary step because she "lacked" the academic qualifications, even though she had the post-secondary education the contract requires for employees to reach the top step. Curiously,  the college simply said that her academic qualifications were not relevant, despite the explicit language to the contrary in the Collective Agreement.

ABUSE OF SESSIONAL AND PART-TIME HIRING
Last year, Local 560 started a number of union grievances to require the college to hire full-time faculty instead of continuing to exploit sessional and partial-load faculty.  The college has settled some of these grievances by creating full-time positions, although originally it claimed there were no available positions.  Consequently, there have been and will be more new hires in SLPA, Electronics, Fire Protection, and Nursing. Sometimes the threat of a pending arbitration brings results: the college has recently approved hires in ECE, although on submission of our grievance last spring, they claimed there were no positions.

Still to be decided are several other permanent staffing grievances including Contract Education, Computer Studies, ECE, all heading to arbitration in February and March.

PRIVACY OF E-MAIL
Can the college monitor your e-mail, and use its contents against you?  Fanshawe College management thinks so. Fanshawe College recently revealed they had monitored and saved an employee’s e-mail and voice-mail messages without his knowledge. We believe this is an improper and inexcusable violation of our expectations of privacy — no different than if the employer were opening closed envelopes in inter-campus mail. Local 560 will be seeking assurances from Seneca that it will not violate the privacy of faculty by invading e-mail and voice-mail communications.

WORKLOAD UPDATE
Good news: we finally have a workload arbitrator. The college consented to arbitrator Howard Snow. The appointment commenced in July, 2001 and runs to June, 2002.  As soon as he was appointed, we started to schedule hearings last July. The college settled one case, but raised preliminary objections on the other outstanding cases, claiming they were out of time and beyond the arbitrator's jurisdiction. They claimed he could not hear cases that arose before he was appointed (i.e. all of them). The arbitrator disposed of that claim in the union’s favour, and he has now begun arbitrating the backlog of workload complaints that were not settled at the WMG level.

Currently, there is only one complaint waiting to be heard by the WMG, so there is little back up.  Remember that you must send your SWF to the WMG within three days of receiving it.  But, if a problem subsequently arises with its interpretation or administration, you may file a complaint at a later time (within 20 days of your becoming aware of the problem).

If you have any questions about your SWF or your workload, call your Workload monitoring Group representatives: Larry Olivo, Ext. 2814; Paul Matson, Ext. 2434; or Ingrid Philipp, Ext. 2034. You can also consult the WMG page of our local web site.

The Local is your newsletter, and we welcome you to contribute articles, photos and graphics informing members about education and union-related issues.

Whether you have an article or just an idea for an article, you can

• telephone us at 416 495-1599,
• write us via inter-office mail addressed to Patricia Clark at Newnham  Campus, or
• e-mail us at union@opseu560.org.

Although we make no promises, we will endeavour to publish all articles submitted, as long as they are relevant, timely, and respectful of union policy. We edit with an eye to factors such as accuracy, libel, length, and style. If you want us to write the article, please be sure to provide us with all the facts you possess.

So, got an idea??? Let us hear from you.

The new CAAT-A Collective Agreement improves our health benefits package considerably.  Since we find ourselves in the midst of three different benefit periods whose limits and duration are affected by the new contract, it is helpful to review these changes so you can take full advantage of the improvements.
The contract settlement does not alter the end date of any benefit period. However, from October 1 forward, the new benefit limits will apply.  Consequently, from October 1 until the end of the current benefit period, the most you can claim for vision, hearing, paramedical or dental expenses is the difference between the new limit and any amount you have already claimed.

Note, however, that you cannot recover any amount you may have spent before October 1 that was in excess of the former limit.

The following table compares the old and new limits and current periods for our benefits.
 

Over the past five years, the Ontario government has reduced the Ministry of Labour's Health and Safety budget by 8.2 million dollars, including a staff reduction of 25%. Now the passage of Bill 57, the Government Efficiency Act, further erodes the level of protection legislated in our workplaces. Just how, you ask?

Imagine that recently you have been experiencing physical symptoms that you suspect may be related to the presence of a substance at your workplace. In response, you might first decide to request an inventory of hazardous substances stored at your campus. You might also ask for a list of new substances recently introduced  to your campus. Or perhaps, if your symptoms are alarming enough, you might decide to stage a work refusal to protect your health, on the assumption that an inspector will visit  personally to investigate the matter.  In each case, you will find that Ontario laws now offer you less protection than prior to June 29, 2001 when Bill 57 received Royal Assent.

Information on Hazardous Materials: Previously, the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) required employers to develop and maintain hazardous materials inventories and floor plans for the workplace. But Bill 57 repeals Section 36 of the Ontario Health & Safety Act, thereby denying workers, public health, and fire-safety officials access to information on hazardous materials in the workplace and in the community. OPSEU Health and Safety Officer Lisa McCaskell says this is a breach of the joint federal-provincial agreement on the Workplace Hazardous Material Information System (WHMIS).

In the past, Section 34 of the OHSA required employers to notify the Health & Safety Director of any new chemical or biological substances introduced into the workplace. The Director could then order an assessment of any such substance suspected to be a possible hazard. Now, however, Section 34 has been repealed. Given the large numbers of new chemicals introduced to workplaces each year, workers may be at serous risk of exposure to dangerous, untested substances.

Work Refusals: Prior to the passage of Bill 57, an inspector had to visit the workplace "in the presence" of the employer, the worker, and the worker's representative (if one existed) to investigate the circumstances provoking a  work refusal. Now the inspector can investigate "in consultation with" the workplace parties.  A telephone consultation is acceptable, and a visit to the work site is no longer mandatory - this in an era of increasing technological complexity in our workplaces which would seem to call for more, not less, direct involvement.

Reports: Under the current legislation, the employer is obligated to report only those workplace accidents involving fatalities or critical injuries to a H&S inspector (and subsequently to the Director of H&S, within 48 hours). In other incidents, "if a person is disabled from performing his or her usual work or requires medical attention because of an accident, explosion or fire at a workplace, but no person dies or is critically injured," the inspector will determine whether the Director of H & S needs to be notified. Will it now take a death or serous injury before the Ministry of Labour finds out about the extent of dangers in our workplaces?
In the past, a worker submitting a complaint was automatically provided with the inspector's report. Now the worker must formally request the report. Unfortunately, many workers may not be aware of their right to a copy of the report.

Last spring, prior to the passage of Bill 57, the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) has provided these alarming details of the state of workplace safety in Ontario:

• In 2000, 243 official workplace deaths;
• In 2000, 134 fatality claims still pending WSIB decisions; and
• as many as 6,000 workers annually suffering from occupational diseases.

 What steps is Seneca College taking to ensure that we will have "the best and the brightest" faculty as colleges compete to fill all the job openings necessitated by the arrival of the famous "double cohort" at colleges and universities in the fall of 2003? Likewise, does the college have a plan for replacing the sizable cohort of faculty that will also be eligible for retirement by 2006?

 In anticipation of the impending period of growth at our colleges, the Project Research Team at Georgian College (funded by Human Resources Development of Canada) has produced a report, Human Resource Requirements Report for Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology  (available online at http://www.acaato.on.ca), along with companion reports providing individual analyses for each college. Senecans are in for big change.

 The report prepared for Seneca College indicates that by 2006, 652 employees (over 50% of our workforce of 1,296) will be eligible to retire, either through normal retirement, unreduced retirement, or reduced retirement options. In addition to any hiring to replace retired employees, increased student numbers will necessitate 256 new hires. The first table below provides a breakdown of the calculations for Seneca employees.
 The data for the academic sector reveals that Seneca College would need to find as many as 510 new faculty, if all eligible faculty opted for normal or early retirement and if growth predictions are accurate.  The second table indicates the breakdown for Seneca faculty according to categories of retirement.

 According to the data, mandatory retirement and increased student numbers will result in an absolute minimum of 187 new faculty hires at Seneca. Add on those faculty taking advantage of the other retirement options, and the total mounts to well over 300.  The challenge now facing Seneca is to attract high calibre applicants to these positions. We will be competing with colleges, universities, and school boards across Canada who are facing similar hiring challenges over the next few years.

CAAT-Academic negotiations, which commence in the spring of 2003,  should find both parties committed to bargain towards significant improvements to the position of academic employees. Such improvements will be necessary to attract and retain good academic employees.
 

Most unions today have a check-off clause in their collective agreements. This clause states that the employer will deduct from each employee’s pay cheque his or her union dues and forward them to the union. Another clause, the union security clause, otherwise known as the Rand Formula, obliges the employer to deduct and forward the same amount from employees who refuse or fail to join the union.

Why should workers who aren’t in the union have to pay the equivalent of union dues? Because they benefit from the union’s services and receive the same wage increases that the union negotiates for the employees who are union members. So it’s only fair that they also pay their share of the union’s operating costs.

Who says so? Mr. Justice Ivan C. Rand, among others. He was asked by the United Auto workers and the Ford Motor Company to mediate the end of a strike by UAW Local 200 in Windsor, back in 1945. The main issue was the union’s demand that all Ford workers join the union within a month after being hired (the union shop).
Justice Rand refused to give the UAW the union shop, but he did rule that, since all the employees benefit equally from having a union contract, they should all pay union dues, whether they were in the union or not.

This arrangement became known as the Rand Formula and it spread quickly to other unions and industries. It remains a standard feature in most collective agreements.

Several years ago, a teacher in Ontario, Marvin Lavigne, objected to making Rand Formula payments to a union because he disagreed with the way the union spent some of its dues revenue. He took his challenge all the way to the Supreme Court, but lost. The court upheld the union’s right to collect his Rand formula payments and to use them for any legitimate purpose.

How Can I Maximize My Pension Earnings?
Earnings accumulated during sessional employment and during unpaid leaves of absence are not included in the calculation of your college pension. However, it is often possible to purchase the pension credits for these periods in order to maximize your pension earnings.

Sessional Employment Period
If you were a sessional employee prior to becoming a full-time or partial-load faculty member, you may be able to purchase the pension credits for the period that you were continuously employed as a sessional. The agreement between the colleges and the CAAT Pension Plan requires you and the college to share the cost equally. Fortunately, your share is eligible for a tax deduction, as are all your pension contributions. As well, the pension purchase will not affect your R.R.S.P. contribution limit.

You will need to calculate whether the purchase is to your advantage. The cost varies according to factors such as your salary at the time of the "buyback", the length of service eligible to be purchased, and the years in which that service occurred.

Unpaid Leaves of Absence
Normally when you take an unpaid leave of absence, Seneca College will alert you to the options regarding your pension-plan contributions. During these leaves, to maintain your  normal pension plan, you will have to pay twice your normal contributions (your share and the college’s).

During pregnancy/parental leaves, however, you will be required to pay only your share, with the college paying the balance.

Am I Eligible? How Much will it Cost?
Kim McGann at Employee Relations (Woodbine Campus) suggests interested faculty write or e-mail her (kim.mcgann@senecac.on.ca), outlining their situation and requesting an official quotation of the cost of their pension purchase.

• Remarkable, wasn’t it, how quietly former H.R. director Melvin Fogel slipped into the night —  well — off to Centennial as a consultant, would you believe!  No kidding.  Also no College announcement, no general collection for parting gifts, no fare-thee-well party. What can we say? How about, goodbye, cheerio, so long, auf wiedersehen, dosvidanya, ciao, aloha, hasta la vista...?

• Speaking of fare-thee-wells, let’s talk about the cost of Steve Quinlan’s "toodle-oo", or should that be "two-dle-oos"?  The June goodbye — $11, 912.94.  The September grand sendoff, for which attendees paid $80 dollars, has still cost the College $13,228 so far.  For those two events, that’s $25,140.94  And we might as well add in the Tampa trip last February, a pre-departure celebration, really — $48,913.90.  Included was the cost of a "special recognition dinner" for the 20 selected Senecans who accompanied the President — nineteen administraors and staff, and one faculty.  Florida in February on the college ticket. Hmmmmm... (Our thanks to the Freedom of Information Act for enabling us to access all of these figures.)

• When a faculty member called the College’s Employee Assistance Program seeking help for a problem with what we laypersons would probably refer to as "internet addiction," he was surprised to hear the reply.  According to testimony at his recent arbitration, the representative of Anne McKeown Associates, the Seneca EAP provider, told him that she could not help him as he was probably going to be dismissed, in which case the College would not pay her.  The spokesperson? —  none other than Ms McKeown herself.

• Wonder if the new President thinks that grades matter?

A magazine contest requested people to submit quotes from their managers. Here are some submissions:
 

•  "As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks."

•  "What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter."

• "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business."

• "This project is so important we can't let things that are more important interfere with it.

• "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them."

• Quote from the boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."

• My sister died, and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my boss, he said she died so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me."

• "We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees."

• When my boss asked for a status report on a project, I asked if the next day would be soon enough. He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!"