Ontario colleges teachers vote to strike

From many Twitter sources:

57% of Ontario college teachers have voted in favor of giving OPSEU the ability to strike if they can't reach an agreement on a new contract with Ontario Colleges.

The impact?

Approximately 500,000 full-time and part-time college students could have their studies canceled this semester as a result of a strike.

This blows for students no doubt, but teachers are generally an underpaid, underappreciated resource imo.

Phuck.

Nothing like a strike to delay my final semester.

hemlock wrote:This blows for students no doubt, but teachers are generally an underpaid, underappreciated resource imo.

I had a few teacher friends when I lived in Montreal. My wife got her BEd and taught a little both in Montreal (when she was still a student) and a bit here, in Ottawa. We have some friends who are teachers here, as well. Let's just say that underpaid applies much more to the teachers in Montreal.

wprager wrote:

hemlock wrote:This blows for students no doubt, but teachers are generally an underpaid, underappreciated resource imo.

I had a few teacher friends when I lived in Montreal. My wife got her BEd and taught a little both in Montreal (when she was still a student) and a bit here, in Ottawa. We have some friends who are teachers here, as well. Let's just say that underpaid applies much more to the teachers in Montreal.

Umm yeah, agreed. I have a lot of buddies (teachers) on my ball team who are doing okay. Add to that a pension which is excellent and extremely rare in the private sector. My tears subside pretty quickly for the underpaid teacher

Ottawa Carleton School Board Teachers (last time I checked) have a starting salary of about 36,000 per year. Where they do well is when they start climbing the pay scale. That takes about 10 years to do and at that point they are making 75,000 per year. This is for full time permanent Teachers of course.

I'm sure the numbers are slightly higher by now as it's been about 5 years since I last looked into it. For me the trouble is the starting salary as it would be a major drop from where I'm at now. Also I'd need to take a year off unpaid to get a BEd. Throw in the fact that I'd have to supply teach at less than full time hours and it's not work-able for me which is too bad.

Most colleges and universities now rely heavily on part-time / sessional instructors. At Carleton and the University of Ottawa, two institutions which I have worked for / am currently working for, the ratio for part-time to full-time staff is now 1:1, and growing in favour of the part-timers. I was offered a job at Algonquin, too, and the situation seems to be about the same there, too.

Now, while full-time faculty members and staff make a decent living (at most Canadian universities, the starting salary for a faculty professor is about $60,000, and the ceiling is about $120,000 -- I don't know about colleges), part-time staff absolutely do not. No benefits, no sick days, no security beyond 4-month contracts. Pay, per 4-month course, right now:

U of O: $7000
Carleton: $6100
Algonquin: $2300

I almost burst out laughing when Algonquin made me their offer. Small wonder college instructors are threatening to strike.

Cap'n Clutch wrote:Ottawa Carleton School Board Teachers (last time I checked) have a starting salary of about 36,000 per year. Where they do well is when they start climbing the pay scale. That takes about 10 years to do and at that point they are making 75,000 per year. This is for full time permanent Teachers of course.

I'm sure the numbers are slightly higher by now as it's been about 5 years since I last looked into it. For me the trouble is the starting salary as it would be a major drop from where I'm at now. Also I'd need to take a year off unpaid to get a BEd. Throw in the fact that I'd have to supply teach at less than full time hours and it's not work-able for me which is too bad.

My friends are all about 10 - 12 years in. They work in the RC board and do very well. Plus summers off if they want or they can do a few camps/summer school for extra scratch. Good gig if you ask me...

EDIT: From reading above, I guess it is a better gig to work with university or grade/high school than college.

rooneypoo wrote:Most colleges and universities now rely heavily on part-time / sessional instructors. At Carleton and the University of Ottawa, two institutions which I have worked for / am currently working for, the ratio for part-time to full-time staff is now 1:1, and growing in favour of the part-timers. I was offered a job at Algonquin, too, and the situation seems to be about the same there, too.

Now, while full-time faculty members and staff make a decent living (at most Canadian universities, the starting salary for a faculty professor is about $60,000, and the ceiling is about $120,000 -- I don't know about colleges), part-time staff absolutely do not. No benefits, no sick days, no security beyond 4-month contracts. Pay, per 4-month course, right now:

U of O: $7000
Carleton: $6100
Algonquin: $2300

I almost burst out laughing when Algonquin made me their offer. Small wonder college instructors are threatening to strike.

Thanks for the info. I only had old info on Ottawa-Carleton School Board Teachers which really isn't relevant to Colleges.

So I'm going to assume it's the part-timers that are pushing to strike then? Serves the colleges right for making them a strong enough group to make some noise on the issue.

Cap'n Clutch wrote:

rooneypoo wrote:Most colleges and universities now rely heavily on part-time / sessional instructors. At Carleton and the University of Ottawa, two institutions which I have worked for / am currently working for, the ratio for part-time to full-time staff is now 1:1, and growing in favour of the part-timers. I was offered a job at Algonquin, too, and the situation seems to be about the same there, too.

Now, while full-time faculty members and staff make a decent living (at most Canadian universities, the starting salary for a faculty professor is about $60,000, and the ceiling is about $120,000 -- I don't know about colleges), part-time staff absolutely do not. No benefits, no sick days, no security beyond 4-month contracts. Pay, per 4-month course, right now:

U of O: $7000
Carleton: $6100
Algonquin: $2300

I almost burst out laughing when Algonquin made me their offer. Small wonder college instructors are threatening to strike.

Thanks for the info. I only had old info on Ottawa-Carleton School Board Teachers which really isn't relevant to Colleges.

So I'm going to assume it's the part-timers that are pushing to strike then? Serves the colleges right for making them a strong enough group to make some noise on the issue.

In a university setting, part-timers and faculty have each a union of their own. I don't know how that works in colleges. It looks to me like OPSEU represents all college teachers, but I'm just speculating there.

At any rate, post-secondary institutions in Canada in general have part-timed themselves into a major crisis. They will all have to deal with the consequences of short-minded thinking, sooner or later.

I'm almost 100% sure that college teachers' pay ceiling isn't in the six figures. If you check the "sunshine list" that's released every year by the province which includes every public sector employee under the pay of the government who makes more than $100,000, you're probably not going to find any teachers on there.

On the flip side, Carleton and uOttawa have long lists of professors on the list earning six figure salaries.

PKC wrote:I'm almost 100% sure that college teachers' pay ceiling isn't in the six figures. If you check the "sunshine list" that's released every year by the province which includes every public sector employee under the pay of the government who makes more than $100,000, you're probably not going to find any teachers on there.

On the flip side, Carleton and uOttawa have long lists of professors on the list earning six figure salaries.

These six figure salaries are probably attached to long serving tenured professors I would suspect.

In any event, Dr. Poo is probably right in that the system is seriously broken and will come back to bite these Universities and Colleges sooner or later.

hemlock wrote:

PKC wrote:I'm almost 100% sure that college teachers' pay ceiling isn't in the six figures. If you check the "sunshine list" that's released every year by the province which includes every public sector employee under the pay of the government who makes more than $100,000, you're probably not going to find any teachers on there.

On the flip side, Carleton and uOttawa have long lists of professors on the list earning six figure salaries.

These six figure salaries are probably attached to long serving tenured professors I would suspect.

In any event, Dr. Poo is probably right in that the system is seriously broken and will come back to bite these Universities and Colleges sooner or later.

Actually a lot of them have been added in recent years.