The Local 653 AGM was held on June 8th in Kirkland Lake. We were lucky to have Rod Bain, professor at Algonquin College and member of the union bargaining team, present to outline the unions proposals going into this round of bargaining.
This document outlines the union’s initial proposals for settlement going into the bargaining sessions.
Other presentations of interest included Lad’s President’s Report, the WMG report and the Chief Steward’s report.
Also of particular interest was the staffing report from our 2nd VP Mike Studd. It shows that in January of this year, there was a total of 1,174 teaching contact hours being taught by 159 non full-time staff. It is the union’s position that this number is far too high, and the college needs to take seriously Article 2 of our collective agreement where is clearly states that “The college will give preference to the designation of full-time positions…” over the hiring of non full-time staff. This issue is an important one for almost all colleges in the system.
We encourage all faculty to take a more active role with their union and attend the AGM if at all possible.