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Legislation outlawing unionization violates International Labour Organization standards
Toronto (30 Jan. 2007) - Ontario colleges exploit over 17,000 part-time workers, both faculty and support staff, as a source of cheap labour. Part-timers are paid less than full-timers. They have no job security. They have few or no benefits. Sometimes they even have to work for free.
How can the colleges treat them this way? Easy. Ontario is the only province in Canada where it is against the law for college part-timers to join a union. Without union rights, part-timers can’t bargain a better deal for themselves. Part-timers have no say in how the colleges treat them.
Part-time workers from Ontario’s 24 colleges met Nov. 17-19, 2006 to form the Organization of Part-time and Sessional Employees of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (OPSECAAT). Members elected a 10-person executive (five from faculty, five from support).
OPSECAAT will be working in 2007 to sign up members across the college system and to advocate for changes to the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act (in accordance with the November International Labour Organization resolution) to allow the basic rights of association and collective bargaining to apply to all workers.
Two offices are being officially opened on Jan. 30 to carry out the campaign. They are located in Toronto at 31 Wellesley St. East and at 100 Lesmill Rd.
For more information please contact the OPSECAAT organizing page at the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/NUPGE) web site. NUPGE
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