Continuing Education Instructors' Bargaining Unit Newsletter:

Volume 2, Issue 5: June 7, 2004

President's Message

It’s that time of the year again. I can’t believe that we’re actually preparing for either holidays or summer school! Where does the time go??

It’s been a superb year for me. I absolutely love being at Wheable. I’ve actually been able to connect names to faces this year. It also makes me a little more accessible to the membership.

It’s been a busy year, also. I’ve attended many workshops and conferences, and spent a lot of time with your collective bargaining committee while they prepared the brief. My biggest hope now is that the Board responds to our wish to bargain, and that we can get at it early in the fall. Karl Dean, who will be negotiating for us, has assured me that we will not wait as long to bargain this time as we did last time….remember it went on for two years???

I can feel that the membership is becoming more involved, and that’s the way it should be. Thus, I will attempt again next year to send more people to conferences, and invite them on to committees. I know that once you get hooked, it really is fun. We had more people out at the AGM this year than ever before. I was impressed!

Please remember…when in doubt about something please ask. I cannot detect a problem if I am uninformed about it. It is always nice to prevent a problem, rather than try to rectify one that’s been established.

For those of you who have chosen to work summer school……BRAVE, is all I can say! Just remember to take August to rest up. I’ve seen how hard all of you work this year, and I know you need that summer break. To those who are taking the whole summer off…… ENJOY!

I will be away from June 28 until July 15. After that you can reach me by e-mail. Please feel free to contact me if there is a problem. I will do the best I can to be of assistance.

If you need assistance while I am away, contact Wendy Hirschegger at the District Office.

See you in September.

Mandatory Meetings

For those of you with NO NIT: it was mutually agreed at a mutual concerns meeting that those instructors without NIT will be paid when they attend meetings that they are requested to be at. This is at any time other than your regular teaching times. Eg. Lunch meetings, after school meetings. It is to be put in on your time sheets.

Offence Declarations

Every year we must complete an offence declaration in which we have an opportunity to disclose to the Board if we have been convicted of a criminal offence.

For our convenience, the Board has made these declarations available on their website. If you go in to your Employee Portal, you will see a line titled "Offence Declaration form". Click on it, and it will take you to the form, which takes less than 3 seconds to complete.

Remember, if this is NOT completed, you are NOT able to work in September.

Employment Insurance

Hopefully, EI will run smoothly for all of you this summer. You should not be hassled. Yes, you must attend their workshop if requested to do so. Yes, you must job search…..that means checking the paper, asking friends, checking on-line. However, you should NOT be told you are not eligible.

You can call by phone to re-activate your claim, or you can apply on-line. Links to EI can be found here. 

If you have any problems, please advise me, and I can look into it for you.

College of Teachers

A reminder to pay your College of Teachers dues if you have not already done so. We have had a couple of incidents this year when instructors have let them lapse. As soon as the Board discovers this, they have rolled back the pay. It is in our agreement that we must be in good standing at the College in order to be in Category 5. It is very easy to pay on-line.

The provincial office of the OSSTF continues to lobby for the restructuring of the Governing Council of the OCT so that teachers will have a clear majority. At present, government appointees and some elected positions for non-public or non-classroom teachers form the majority.

OSSTF is also circulating a petition to have part of this year’s fee refunded to members and to have the fee lowered since the PLP has been scrapped. As you will recall, a $35 fee increase was implemented a few years ago in order to pay for administration costs of the PLP. Now that the government has introduced legislation to get rid of the PLP, it is OSSTF’s opinion that $35 of the 2004 fee should be refunded and the fees lowered by at least that amount in future years.

District Office Renovations

Our OSSTF office on Industrial Road is presently undergoing a complete renovation in order to make it handicapped accessible.

These renovations will take until August ( or at least that’s what everyone is hoping for). The office has been relocated to the corner of Highbury and Hamilton Rd. in the Fairmont Plaza. This space is temporary, and working conditions are less than ideal, so keep your fingers crossed that the contractors keep to their schedule.

The phone and fax numbers have remained the same.

Education Matters Online

If you visit the district OSSTF website you will find all sorts of information about what’s going on.

Wendy Hirschegger puts a newsletter called Education Matters Online on the website which contains all sorts of interesting materials. There are contests, local info, provincial info, and political info. It really is informative and worth reading. Check it out!!

Committees

We still have no representation on several local committees. Getting involved with OSSTF is very rewarding, and a lot of fun.

If you are interested in sitting on a committee, please notify me. Staff at out district office would be thrilled to have more instructor involvement, and I’d be glad to take you over there and introduce you to those involved.

Go the CEI Committee page on the District website for more information: http://www.osstf11.com/CEI.htm.

Adult Education Review by Ministry of Education

From the Ministry of Education website http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/adultedreview/:

"The goal of the adult education review is to establish a new, effective framework for adult education and training in Ontario. We want to build a framework that will improve opportunities for Ontario adults to increase job-related knowledge and skills, pursue further education and training, and to enhance personal well-being and quality of life.
The Ontario government is committed to delivering real positive change that will help us compete and win globally by building the best educated, most highly skilled workforce. Adult education plays a critical role in building a prosperous economy based on high skills and high standards.
Together we can build an Ontario that is the envy of the world, with a quality of life that is second to none."

That website also contains a "Discussion Paper" and a web-based questionnaire so that you can respond to the government as part of this review.

The provincial office is providing a lot of materials to assist members in responding to these questions. There are pamphlets, facts, statistics and a copy of the answers that the provincial office submitted to the government in response to that questionnaire. Links to these materials have also been organized on the District 11 website at http://www.osstf11.com/AdultEd.htm.

Let us not take thought for our separate interests, but let us help one another.
(OSSTF Motto)

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