Organizing drive comes seven years after first attempt to unionize part-time support staff

Warren “Smokey” Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union, announces a unionizing drive at George Brown’s Waterfront campus. Courtesey of OPSEU

“Part-time support staff at George Brown College and the 23 other Ontario colleges currently have no rights or entitlements, except those deemed by the colleges,” says Marilou Martin, president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Local 557 at George Brown. “They have become an example of the province-wide problem of the overuse of precarious workers.”

Warren “Smokey” Thomas, president of OPSEU, officially launched the campaign to unionize the part-time support staff at Ontario’s 24 colleges on Sept. 1 at George Brown College’s (GBC) Waterfront campus.

Currently George Brown has 568 part-time support staff, who are not represented by a union.

“For many years they were legally unable to access a union, under a special piece of legislation called the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act,” said Tracey MacMaster, a member of the union’s divisional executive committee. “This bleeds over into an attitude from college employers that part-time workers are somehow less ‘real’ employees than full-time (ones).”

MacMaster, who works as a library technician at Seneca College, said that part-time support staff don’t receive benefits, fair wages, predictable schedules, are not paid sick time and do not have access to a fair system for complaints and concerns.

“This history makes the invitation to events sponsored by the full-time support staff union mean more than joining us for a burger—it creates a culture of inclusion, and clearly sends a message that we are all in this together,” she added.

“Our part-time employees are critical to our success and are valued members of our George Brown College community,” said Leslie Quinlan, vice-president of human resources and organizational development at George Brown. “We encourage part-time support staff employees to understand their rights and consider all the facts in making their own decisions concerning the value of joining OPSEU.”

This was not the first time OPSEU has tried to launch an organizing campaign of part-time workers at Ontario’s colleges.

The union launched an organizing drive in 2008, and after having several thousand workers sign union cards OPSEU asked for an Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) vote to join the union, according to Timothy Humphries a communications officer for OPSEU.

“Following voting, however, the colleges spent millions of dollars to mount a legal challenge before the OLRB, thus delaying the actual counting of the votes,” said Humphries. “After many hearing dates and endless legal roadblocks put up by the colleges, OPSEU’s applications to represent part-time college workers did not succeed as the votes were never counted.”