February 24, 2010
Greetings!
We hope that your term is progressing
well. We wish to take this opportunity to provide you with some reminders and
an update of union activities, issues and announcements. We did have a
busy fall term, but we did not send out a newsletter as we were constantly
anticipating more news to be able to pass on. We are now at a point where we
can no longer delay. Our web page: http://www.stmfu.ca/.
Reminders:
· Our
Collective Agreement ends on June 30th of this year. Our Negotiating Committee is Brian Chartier,
Chris Foley and Bryan Wiebe. Any suggestions or issues for the new contract are
welcome and appreciated.
· Sessionals
interested in applying for seniority should note the following:
Sessional Lecturers shall be responsible for
arranging student evaluations for each of the courses they teach while in the
probationary period. Failure on the part of the Sessional Lecturer to arrange
for adequate student evaluations shall be grounds to withhold seniority. (from
Article 5.1.10.8.2.3)
· Sessional
Positions for next year will be advertised in June. In some departments, there may be significant
changes in the number of courses available for sessional faculty due to new
hirings and changes in the number of course offerings.
We want to emphasize that all members of the
Union have the right to consult with the Union about any matter concerning your
employment with the college. Please feel free to contact a member of the
Executive with any concerns you might have.
The Union respects the confidentiality of our members.
Issues:
1.
Arbitrations
and Judicial Reviews
[Removed from Web Page]
2.
When
are You an Employee? (Part 1)
STM has been moving away from the traditional collegial model towards a
regular business model in its relationship with Sessionals. An example is the
controversy surrounding office space, including access to libraries and
computer accounts. A few years ago the College proposed providing Sessionals
with just a locker and a common set of offices, so that a Sessional could work
wherever there happened to be an empty space. The Union objected to the
impracticality of setting up student appointments: “Go to the fourth floor and
knock on all the doors – disturbing everybody – until you find me.” The College
also wanted to terminate access to offices, library accounts, computer
accounts, etcetera for the summer. After resistance from the Union, they
relented on email and library accounts, but not on offices. We were told that
the offices could be rented out. Management’s main argument was: In what
regular business would someone be given access to company resources while not
actually employed by that company? The Union replied that Sessionals sometimes
needed to do work for the College outside the actual period of their contract.
Management responded by allowing Sessionals to book a room when needed to
conduct college business outside the period of their contract.
Sessionals have not been happy with
this arrangement.
So much is history. Now that we
know the model they are using, we should insist on consistency. Consider the
College’s policy on course syllabi. In many cases, preparing syllabi in the
couple of days from the beginning of the contract to the first class, when STM
(unlike the U. of S.) requires you to submit them to the Dean’s office, is
unreasonable. I suspect that most Sessionals are starting with these duties
before their contract comes into effect. Consistency means that the College
cannot require this. In what regular business could a future employee be
required to perform duties prior to the beginning of the contract? Working on the
syllabi before the contract begins amounts to unpaid labour! (On the other
hand, the CSF, who are under contract well before term begins, may be required
to work on syllabi during the summer.) Sessionals should not be chumps.
Allowing others to take advantage of you is irresponsible to your family. If
they really want the work to be complete by the first class, they should be
willing to pay you to start earlier. Perhaps you may need to quit your summer
job earlier to fulfill these duties. Why should you be working for free? When
educated people allow employers to take advantage of their education without
proper remuneration, it diminishes the value of education in the marketplace.
It sets a poor example for the students. Why should parents want to send their
kids to a college that puts chumps at the front of classes making them role
models? If you believe education to be a good thing, you should not allow this
to happen. You would do better to turn in your syllabi late.
Quotations:
God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. -- Voltaire, (attributed)
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always
so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. -- Bertrand Russell
