OPSEU Local 560

 This Monday morning, June 7, André Bekerman died.  Likely, very few of you will know who he was. André was a negotiator at OPSEU and, in that capacity, he negotiated Collective Agreements on behalf of College faculty since 1985.  This week, André lost to the cancer he had been fighting since 1997.

It was André who negotiated the first workload formula on our behalf.  Faculty who were here prior to that agreement and through the strike of 1984 will recognize what that has meant to us. Over a thousand new faculty were hired as a result of the introduction of the formula, and many of our faculty members are in the College system today because of the contribution of André and the faculty team members who worked with him.
André negotiated every faculty Collective Agreement since 1985.  I was fortunate to work with him on three teams, the last time as Chair.  He was assigned, for a time, to work with the last bargaining team until his health made it impossible for him to continue.  His commitment and dedication to work on our behalf, even while he was suffering great pain, was remarkable.

Tenacity was one of André’s  greatest strengths as a negotiator.  He knew what points to hold onto and was relentless in pressing management on those issues.  Equally, he knew when to let go and to focus on what was achievable. And he never compromised on matters of principle.  It was clear that André commanded the respect of representatives on both sides of the bargaining table.
Last month, I organized a breakfast with André and the chairs of the last four faculty bargaining teams.  He spoke of his archeological work in Greece and in Cuba, and of passing on his tasks there to others.  He talked about his joy at sitting in the right tavern – for him that was the left tavern – in the small Greek village where political affiliation determined drinking establishments.
When he was recovering from surgery last year, André addressed the faculty union delegates from each college about our bargaining.  He told us of his own solidarity picket during the OPSEU public-service strike — in Sunnybrook, I.V. pole and all.  He was inspirational in urging faculty to pursue and continue to struggle for our goals.

André was a champion of college faculty, the great majority of whom never knew of his tireless and difficult work on their behalf.  He would want it no other way.

Without ever teaching in the College system, André had a profound impact on it.  He understood the academic issues so important to teachers, counsellors, and librarians, as well as the nuts-and-bolts issues of salary, benefits, grievances, etc.
He will be missed by his family and those who knew and worked with him.

Dear SWF Doctor,
There seem to be two kinds of "Repeat" courses, A & B.  What’s the difference?
Puzzled

Dear Puzzled,
Good question.  Repeats are sections of the same course you already have on your SWF as New or Established.  The name and number must be the same.  You cannot have a Repeat section on its own.  Repeat A is for sections where the students in that section are all in the same year and the same program.  Repeat B is for sections where there is some mix of students from different years or different programs.  Repeat B gets a higher prep value because of these differences.

Dear SWF Doctor,
I‘m supposed to get my SWF six weeks before the teaching starts, I understand.  What happens if I don’t get one or I get it late?
Still Waiting

Dear Waiting,
Without a SWF, you cannot be assigned any teaching.  And without any teaching, you cannot be assigned anything else, except by mutual agreement.

You must get six weeks’ notice as you know.  And vacation and holiday periods do not count as part of that notice period.  So, if you don’t have a SWF, you can make an inquiry of your supervisor, asking why not.  Or you can continue with other activities and wait for your supervisor to determine a teaching assignment.
If your SWF is late, you should take it to the Workload Monitoring Group.  The reason for the six-week notice is to allow you to prepare.  On occasion, circumstances may make if impossible for the College to provide the required notice.  When that happens, the extra and compressed work  can be compensated for by providing additional prep time or by reducing other work.

Dear SWF Doctor,
Why is PD not on my SWF?
Overworked

Dear Overworked,
Professional Development is not an assigned function and has no hours attributed to it.  PD is arranged by mutual consent and agreement, under Article 11.01 H.  That means that you don’t have to engage in any particular PD activity if you have reason not to.

You are entitled to ten days of PD each year, five of which are uninterrupted  But you are not obliged to take all or any of these.  Neither are you restricted to ten.  That is a minimum entitlement.  If you have an interest in a particular PD activity, you should propose it to your supervisor to seek agreement.  That agreement, just like yours, is not to be unreasonably withheld.

After hearing the employee’s grievance, Arbitrator James Dorsey reversed the suspension and removed the computer-use restrictions.

Leslie Field, the archive assistant, had used the University’s computer to send personal e-mails while at work.  The arbitrator noted that Library policy permitted the personal use of the e-mail system, provided it did not affect regular duties or impinge significantly on work time.  Like the use of telephone to make personal calls, this was permitted as long as it was not excessive and did not interfere with work duties.

As for the links to pornographic sites found by the employer in Field’s bookmark file, the arbitrator accepted Field’s explanation that these had been transported from his home computer along with other personal files and work-related websites, and that the pornographic links were in a file actually belonging to Field’s teenage son.

Remember:
· e-mail is not secure communication,
· the computers belong to the college,
· the college can access and examine the equipment at any time,
· any personal use should be restricted so that it does not interfere with work duties.

Perhaps it’s not so strange really.  Either it’s the usual governmental short-sightedness, or it’s part of a more invidious plan to undermine the system and encourage privatization.  Take your pick.
Should a system of public, and publicly-funded colleges, designed to serve diverse communities around the province be placing its member colleges in competition amongst themselves for already scarce funding?

This is not how you make public institutions accountable. You do that by having Boards that are responsible and fairly representative of the public.  You do it too by making the institutions internally accountable first.   You’ll note that employee satisfaction is missing from the KPI list.

A change in this area is long overdue, and we can only hope that Ms. Pitt brings a breath of fresh air to the College’s Human Resources portfolio.

The College President’s announcement noted that Ms Pitt comes to Seneca from the City of Toronto human resources area where she had "extensive experience in negotiating settlements and in communicating with union officials."

We’ll be contacting the City of Toronto CUPE representatives and hope that their assessment of Ms Pitt is a positive one.
We welcome the new Vice-President and look forward with hope to an improved working relationship in union/management activities, and, even more, for improvement in the relationships with and respect for faculty and other employees.