Faculty union marks start of first-ever contract negotiations for part-time staff

Part-time staff at St. Clair College are set to negotiate for their first-ever contract.

St. Clair College’s faculty union says part-time and sessional staff are preparing to negotiate their first-ever contract.

OPSEU Local 138 President Mark Colangelo says they voted to unionize back in 2017, but the result was tied up in legal challenges for several years and only confirmed about a year ago.

“OPSEU/SEFPO is now in the process of developing a demand set, we’ve created a bargaining team and we are just going to move in to starting our first dates of bargaining, which is absolutely amazing that we’ve been able to move this far for a group of people who really weren’t allowed to unionize,” Colangelo said.

He called it a major milestone for instructors who previously would have had no formal job protections.

“You’ve got a group of people who have zero employment stability, and I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to work from a semester-to-semester basis, not knowing, if and what I’m going be working the next semester and having zero control over that,” said Colangelo.

“The college at any point in time can change wages and change your working conditions, working hours, how often, at their whim.”

Colangelo said negotiations will happen at the provincial level with the College Employer Council.

“It’s a central bargaining that happens,” he said.

“All 24 colleges bargain and negotiate together. Their first bargaining dates are April 28 and 29.”

Colangelo, who represents 1,000 faculty at St. Clair College, said full-time and partial-load instructors are currently mid-way through their existing collective agreement.