“A law that has no practical use is no law at all,” says NUPGE president James Clancy. “The amended CCBA technically allows part-time college workers in Ontario to unionize, but it’s been a complete failure in practice and these workers continue to have their rights denied.”
Ottawa (28 April 2010) – The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is calling on the International Labour Organization (ILO), an agency of the United Nations, to re-open its investigation of a complaint that the Ontario government is denying 16,000 part-time community college workers the basic right to form a union and participate in collective bargaining.
The formal complaint was filed by NUPGE in June 2005 on behalf of its Ontario component, the Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU/NUPGE), which represents more than 15,000 full-time faculty and support staff at community colleges across the province.
In November, 2006 the ILO released a strong ruling in favour of the NUPGE/OPSEU complaint stating at the time that it “fails to see any reason why the basic rights of association and collective bargaining afforded to all workers should not also apply to part-time college employees.”
The ILO requested that the Ontario government ”rapidly take legislative measures to ensure that academic and part-time support staff in community colleges fully enjoy the rights to organize and bargain collectively, as any other workers.”
The Ontario government responded to this embarrassing international ruling by amending the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act (CCBA) in October 2008. The amendments were intended to provide all part-time and sessional faculty, and support staff, the right to bargain collectively. In follow up correspondence made to the ILO in October 2009, the Ontario government boasted about the corrective legislative action it took in response to the agency’s report.
However, NUPGE says the Ontario government is misleading the ILO about the effectiveness of their actions to correct the situation.
In a letter sent yesterday to the ILO Director-General, Juan Somavia, NUPGE national president James Clancy says that “the October 2009 communication from the Government of Ontario is misleading and does not accurately reflect the situation facing part-time college employees in Ontario.”
“Despite the amendments made to the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act (CCBA), those employees are still being denied their fundamental right to join a union and bargain collectively,” said Clancy.
Under the amended CCBA, 35 percent of the workers affected must sign union cards in order for the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) to order a vote. The legislation also gives the colleges an opportunity to challenge the number of cards the union has signed. This is exactly what the employer did immediately after OPSEU applied for certification.
To justify their challenge, the employer produced their own list of the number of employees affected by the certification vote, flooding it with employees who clearly wouldn’t be part of the union bargaining unit. The result has been months of mediation and litigation at the Labour Relations Board, with the employer using every method at its disposal to delay and obstruct a vote.
To make matters worse, the colleges have manipulated the timing of the workers’ contracts to make sure that those who signed cards weren’t working when the union certification application was filed.
“The ILO condemned the Ontario government for denying part-time college workers the fundamental right to form a union,” said Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of OPSEU. “While the government changed the law, in reality nothing actually changed. The employer is now hijacking the legal process in order to continue denying these workers the right to form a union.”
“We want to ensure that the ILO is fully aware that this case is far from settled,” Thomas said. “The McGuinty government cannot be allowed to pretend this issue is resolved while thousands of legal ballots go uncounted.”
NUPGE president James Clancy pointed out that “a law that has no practical use is no law at all. The amended CCBA technically allows part-time college workers in Ontario to unionize, but it’s been a complete failure in practice and these workers continue to have their rights denied.”
The unions are hopeful that the ILO will use the new information as the basis to demand that the Ontario government stop throwing up roadblocks to prevent part-time college workers from forming a union and bargaining collectively.
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE
More information:
- James Clancy’s letter to ILO Director General Juan Somavia
- Ontario tries to block tally of part-time college vote
- Part-time college support staff to vote in October
- Ontario colleges continue to block union vote count
- Ontario colleges blocking historic union vote count
- Ontario's part-time college workers win right to unionize
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