Canadian Union Files Grievance
by
TAA Staff
THE FACULTY UNION at Algonquin College, in Nepean, Ontario,
has filed several grievances regarding college hiring part-time
and sessional faculty over full-time faculty.
“This is not a new thing, in the sense that for years in
many areas of the college there has been a tendency to overuse
non-full-time categories of teacher,” said faculty union president
Doug Brandy.
Non-full-time faculty members include part-time professors
that teach no more than six hours a week. Partial-load professors
are rare and teach seven to 12 hours a week on a regular basis,
and sessional professors work full-time hours but are hired
on a temporary basis, usually as a replacement for a teacher
on leave.
According to the collective agreement, management is required
to favor the hiring of full-time teachers over any other sort.
According to both Brandy and Chris Warburton, vice-president
of Student Life and Human Resources, economic factors often
determine who gets hired at the college.
“The way the colleges are funded, there is a lot of pressure
on college administrations to keep enrolment where it’s at,
to deliver the curriculum, the courses and the programs,”
said Warburton.
Part-time, sessional, and partial-load teachers [are] employed
for less money than full-time faculty.
When asked if he thinks the college is economically capable
of hiring more full-time teachers, Brandy said yes, but said
some degree of flexibility in hiring is reasonable.
From 1993 until 1996 the college had a special contract with
the teacher’s union that allowed them to make use of part-time
and sessional staff. At the time the college was having financial
problems and was experiencing downsizing.
The union discontinued the agreement in 1996, and in April
1996, the college received a 17 per cent funding cut from
the provincial government.
“We were facing big financial problems before the really
big cut (in April 1996) so the union wasn’t going to put in
grievances because they knew we were in a bind,” said Warburton.
“But now there’s a feeling that things are returning to a
normal situation and therefore there are areas they feel we
should be recruiting for on a full-time basis.”
However, both Brandy and Warburton agree it is okay to hire
sessional faculty in certain cases.
“Sessional staff should be hired mainly, almost exclusively,
to replace an absence that is temporary and predictable and
that is going to end at a certain time,” said Brandy. “It’s
when a sessional appointment is made and there isn’t any obvious
replacement correlation that we feel the college is not respecting
the collective agreement,” he continued.
Warburton agreed, with the exception that he supported enrollment
driven hiring. For example, if there is heavier enrolment
in one program during one semester as opposed to others, more
teachers might be needed in one semester to handle the extra
workload. Then a sessional teacher could be hired for that
semester.
When asked if the college tends to favor the hiring of non-full-time
faculty, Brandy responded, “We think it happens more than
it should. The fact that we have a number of grievances outstanding
is evidence.”
