Ten things Ontario College students should know about their professors’ current bargaining with the Colleges

1. The faculty union represents over 15,000 professors, instructors, counsellors and librarians at the 24 Ontario public Colleges.

2. Because College management refuses to present an offer that addresses faculty’s main concerns in this round of bargaining, faculty will begin “work to rule” in January. That means that faculty will do their jobs exactly as outlined in their contracts and work assignments. For example, they may stop volunteering extra time or working outside of regular hours.

3. The amount of time that faculty are given to prepare classes and evaluate students hasn’t changed since 1985.

4. Right now, this workload formula gives faculty a maximum of 5.4 minutes per week to grade the work that you submit. Faculty are asking for that maximum to be increased to 7.2 minutes.

5. Faculty are asking for more time to grade students, but the College Presidents are saying that faculty are asking for a reduction in workload. (We don’t understand it either. We wish they would stop lying to you.)

6. A professor typically receives less than two hours to prepare a three-hour class each week, even if it’s online.

7. Bargaining doesn’t need to keep going: The faculty union has already offered to have an arbitrator decide all issues on which the two sides can’t agree

8. Over 70% of all professors and instructors in the Ontario College system are on 14-week contracts. Some have been doing their job for decades, but their Colleges will only hire them for 14 weeks at a time. These faculty members have fewer rights than full-timers.

9. Professors are given as little as four hours each week to help students out of class – that includes both office hours and e-mails.

10. If you would like management to resolve bargaining without labour disruption, please let your college President know, at: https://www.collegefaculty.org/write-your-college-president/

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