12,500 part-time college workers invited to sign cards
Hamilton (19 Oct. 2007) - The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/NUPGE) has launched the largest union organizing drive in provincial history.
OPSEU, which currently represents over 16,000 full-time support and academic staff at 24 Ontario community colleges, is inviting more than 12,500 college part-timers and sessionals to sign union cards immediately.
“Our union is throwing its full support and resources into the drive to win union representation for college part-timers and sessionals,” says Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of OPSEU. “These workers have been exploited as a source of cheap labour for far too long. It’s time they had access to the advantages collective bargaining offers.”
The OPSEU drive follows a June 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that collective bargaining is a protected right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Under Ontario law, college part-timers and sessionals had been barred from unionizing. In August of this year, the McGuinty government announced its intention to extend bargaining rights to these workers.
“We are seeing enthusiastic support for our organizing drive from right across the labour movement,” says Roger Couvrette, president of Organization of Part-time and Sessional Employees of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (OPSECAAT). “There is widespread recognition that this organizing drive, when it succeeds, will right an historic wrong.” NUPGE
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