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Action Caucus leads fight for democracy in OTBU ‘Wonderland’
Once again, it was like stepping through the looking glass into Alice’s Wonderland at the Toronto (OSSTF) Occasional Teachers’ Bargaining Unit (OTBU) general meeting on November 29, 2007. A skewed agenda, reduced opportunities for members to speak or ask questions, capricious and mean-spirited chairing, and a chorus of trained seals made the gathering a memorable, if unsavory, event.
The gathering, one of only two OTBU general meetings held each year, started 20 minutes late, and was pre-determined to end 15 minutes earlier than usual. Large blocks of time were allocated to reports from the OTBU President, OTBU Treasurer, a provincial OSSTF executive member, plus “Other OTBU reports”. That left 45 minutes for the election of AMPA delegates, and scarcely 20 minutes to discuss 11 resolutions. One of those was submitted by the OTBU executive; the rest by the Action Caucus.
In fact, only four resolutions were debated at all. Others were either ruled out of order (the OTBU executive having provided no advice prior to the meeting as to how a simple re-wording might remedy the situation). Or, they were not addressed due to the manufactured shortage of time. Sadly, this excluded brand new proposals from the Action Caucus for special membership meetings to investigate the growing incidence of student misbehavior towards substitute teachers, to look into the dysfunctional dispatch system, and to publish monthly data on the size of the dispatch list.
David Hopkins, Toronto OTBU President, shrugged off the jobs crisis that is impinging on a majority of members. He insisted that school board statistics show that there’s more work than ever – then in the same breathe he conceded that declining student enrollment and fewer contract teachers means less work for substitutes. When the chair blocked a supplementary question to Hopkins, pandemonium erupted.
But one question was heard above the din: “Why did the executive issue a survey on collective bargaining priorities which omitted the Job Security Cap from the list of 10 issues?” The President’s transparently disingenuous answer: “We intended to include the Cap in our contract demands, so it was not necessary to put it in the survey.”
Ah, you may ask, when were they planning to tell us that? Many members have been agitating for reinstatement of the Cap for over four years, since the present pro-management OTBU controlling faction gave it away. Well, don’t ask.
Another question we’d like to have answered relates to a regressive article inserted into our contract in the last round of bargaining. It created a new status called RASTO’s (Regularly Assigned Short Term Occasionals). These are substitutes who are given teaching assignments every day in a particular school or group of schools. How many RASTO’s are there? Are most of them double-dipping retired teachers?
Then the financial report revealed that the Toronto OTBU has assets of over $174,000. $170,000 of that sits in a “Reserve Fund”. Treasurer Rudy Winter admitted that the entire executive is at the trough, collectively being paid $70,000 a year for “time release”. He also admitted that over $5,500 a year is spent on renting banquet halls for OTBU meetings that could be held free of charge at any TDSB school on the subway line. Still, with such a huge surplus in the bank, what is the rationale for continuing to extract a Special Local Levy of about 50 cents a day (on top of regular OSSTF dues of $2.69 a day) from each working member? There appears to be no rational reason for it.
The worrisome spectre of ‘province-wide bargaining’ (proclaimed by the Liberal government that, ironically, OSSTF helped to elect) haunts the coming year of contract negotiations. This should be of particular concern to substitute teachers whose issues and priorities have been treated by OSSTF officials, at the best of times, with a studied indifference. Province-wide bargaining, which for the moment OSSTF is resisting, would virtually exclude ordinary substitute teachers from any meaningful in-put and would consign our concerns to a place so distant in the background that negotiators would need a telescope to see them.
Despite extremely unfriendly OTBU meeting circumstances, the Action Caucus did an exemplary job of pressing for attention to important issues and demanding accountability from the secretive closed-circle known as the executive. We made some important progress too. Action Caucus member Maxine Harris was elected Alternate to the OTBU AMPA delegation. A few more votes would have elected an additional Action Caucus candidate. And that’s another reason why more OTBU members need to attend, despite the difficult-to-reach location deliberately chosen by the executive.
A further gain was the appointment of Brooks Rapley, a young, daily substitute teacher, by the OTBU executive to fill a vacancy on that body. Almost all the other members of the executive, and the membership of its appointed standing committees, consist of retired teachers with handsome pension incomes. So, the veil of executive secrecy may yet be lifted by a fresh breeze.
Nonetheless, there is no basis to place any confidence in the self-serving, incompetent, ruling clique which has presided over the incredibly shrinking democracy of the OTBU and its increasingly under-employed and ignored general membership. The general meeting of November 29 showed, once again, that the only sure remedy for the growing ills of Toronto secondary substitute teachers is to give the ruling rascals the boot, and to elect a team based on the principles of the Action Caucus.
And that is what hopefully will happen in the Spring of 2008.
Join us now in planning the transition to responsible, effective, democratic leadership and a rejuvenated, membership-driven, fighting union in 2008.
Come to the next Action Caucus meeting, which will be held in mid-March at OISE, 252 Bloor St. West.
Until then, enjoy the holidays. Have a safe, happy and healthy New Year.
For more information, visit the Toronto Substitute Teachers’ Action Caucus
web site at: www.angelfire.com/torontosubstitutes and telephone: 416 - 588-9090
OTBU General Meeting, Nov. 29
Election of AMPA Delegates
Collective Bargaining Survey
Dear sisters and brothers, colleagues:
Please plan to attend the Toronto Occasional Teachers' Bargaining Unit (OTBU) General Meeting on Thursday, November 29, 4:30 p.m., at the Latvian Centre, Eglinton Ave. E. and Credit Union Drive, 2 stop lights east of the Don Valley Expressway.
We invite you to join in the effort to restore union democracy, along with honest and effective representation, by speaking and voting for the resolutions submitted by the Action Caucus (see below).
We also invite you to send a strong voice to the annual OSSTF Convention, to advance the interests of all substitute teachers, by electing on Nov. 29 the following candidates to be your OTBU delegates:
Barry Weisleder
John Bekeros
Janine Carter
Maxine Harris
Ashok Kindra
Satvinder Saini
Jagtar Singh Mann
Christopher Sojka
The OTBU newsletter just mailed to your home, titled "Executive Memo", provides yet another sad but graphic illustration why members sorely need a change in direction and a change in representation in the bargaining unit. The newsletter reports that "there is more work available from the TDSB than in previous years". But the TDSB Help Desk personnel told us that there was less work available this Fall due to fewer teacher absences. Many members have experienced less work in recent weeks than we have experienced in many years. So, if indeed there were more jobs, who was getting those jobs?
This brings us to the "OTBU Collective Bargaining Committee Survey". (Please note that apparently there is a "Bargaining Committee", but there is no indication of who is on it, or who selected them.)
The Survey asks you to assign points to the bargaining issue(s) so as to rank them in the order of most important to you. There's just one problem. The most important issue -- job security -- is absent from the list. This is no accident. The people now in control of our local union gave away, in 2004, the best job security provision for substitute teachers ever in Ontario.
So, here is what we suggest you do.
Fill out the Survey by putting your name and TDSB employee number near the top as requested.
Then go to Point 10 on the list of issues.
Beside "Other issues (specify)" please write in the following:"Cap the O.T. list at 1200 names".
(You could add below it that the present number on the OT list be reduced by attrition.)
Then assign that issue a number of points close to 100.
Award your remaining points to any other issues you like, but realize that if you don't have enough steady work, year-round (and the only way to get it is to end the present situation where over 1800 substitute teachers are chasing 600 jobs a day), all other issues come a distant second to job security and the need for an OT list Cap.
Now, please respond to this message with any questions you have, and let us know that you plan to attend the OTBU General Meeting on November 29.
Oh yes, and don't forget to read the resolutions below.
Resolutions for Nov. 29, 2007 Toronto OTBU General Meeting
which will be held at 4:30 p.m. at the Latvian Centre, 4 Credit Union Drive, just south of Eglinton, two lights east of the Don Valley Pkwy. The resolutions are presented by the Substitute Teachers’ Action Caucus.
1. More accessible Location for OTBU Meetings
Be It Resolved That this meeting request the Executive to ensure that all future Toronto OTBU meetings, including General Meetings, AGMs, Committee meetings, Collective Bargaining, Tentative Agreement and other information meetings, Professional Development activities, and OT work shops be held at a TDSB school or at an OSSTF facility as close as possible to a centrally located TTC subway station.
Rationale: OTBU meetings could be held at TDSB or OSSTF facilities for little or no cost, as was done prior to 2003. Obtainable space at 1482 Bathurst Street (the OSSTF D12 building) and at TDSB schools situated close to a centrally located TTC subway station can easily accommodate an attendance of 200 or more. The banquet halls and restaurants used by the OTBU charge over $1000 for rental of meeting space, parking, and refreshments. Equally important is the fact that 60 Mobile Drive and adjacent venues, situated in Don Mills, are difficult to reach via public transit – taking about two hours from any great distance. But any meeting space near a central subway station can be reached by public transit in about half that time. This is a particularly important consideration for members who have after-school family and teaching duties. To save money and to make OTBU meetings more accessible to members who do not have cars, please vote for this motion.
2. More frequent OTBU General Membership Meetings
Be It Resolved That this meeting request the Toronto OTBU Executive to convene at least four General Membership Meetings per school year to facilitate: the exchange of more information, greater leadership accountability, and more in-put from members, each meeting to be held no less than 30, and no more than 60 school days apart.
Rationale: It is grossly inadequate for the Executive to convene only one or two OTBU General Meetings per school year to do the business of such a large bargaining unit. Prior to 2003 the OTBU held five or six General Meetings per school year, plus one or two Socials. Now the Executive operates almost entirely behind closed doors. At the infrequent General Meetings, it refuses to answer members’ questions, it limits the meeting time to less than 150 minutes, and it fills the agendas with fluff. For a more open and transparent bargaining unit, for one that would try to maximize membership involvement and leadership accountability, at least four General Meetings per school year are necessary.
3. Investigation and Action on the Student ‘Behavior’ Crisis
Be It Resolved That this meeting direct the Executive to undertake a comprehensive investigation of the growing problem of student uncooperativeness, flagrant rudeness and violence towards Occasional Teachers, the enquiry to be conducted by soliciting in-put from the Membership at a special General Membership Meeting to be convened in March 2008, and by requesting submissions in writing, the results of which, including all membership approved recommendations for improvement of student behavior, to be presented by an OTBU delegation to the appropriate TDSB Standing Committee, as well as in writing to the Chair and Director of the TDSB, as soon as possible following the Special Membership Meeting.
Rationale: Although this problem is not suffered exclusively by substitute teachers, it is growing rapidly and it leaves our members most vulnerable to its consequences.
4. Investigation and Action on the Dis-functional Dispatch System
Be It Resolved That this meeting direct the Executive to undertake a comprehensive review of the so-called SmartFindExpress automated dispatch system as it affects secondary school occasional teachers at the TDSB, the enquiry to be conducted by soliciting in-put from the Membership at a special General Membership Meeting to be convened in March 2008, and by requesting submissions in writing, the results of which, including all membership approved recommendations for improvement of the dispatch system, to be presented by an OTBU delegation to the appropriate TDSB Standing Committee, as well as in writing to the Chair and Director of the TDSB, as soon as possible following the Special Membership Meeting.
Rationale: While problems associated with the automated dispatch system are many and ongoing, there has never been a consultation of rank and file substitute teachers either by Management or the OTBU Executive. It’s time that our voices be heard within the union and at the school board.
5. Eliminate “Preferred” Lists at TDSB Secondary Schools
Be It Resolved That this meeting direct the Executive to seek, at Consultation Committee and by other appropriate means, the elimination of the practice, within the TDSB, of secondary school administrators maintaining and utilizing ‘Preferred’ lists of Occasional Teachers enabling them to request certain OT s ahead of other qualified OT s on the TDSB secondary panel dispatch list for occasional teaching assignments.
Rationale: Cronyism, favoritism, even nepotism are significant factors in the distribution of occasional teaching assignments in the TDSB’s secondary panel. The job of the union is to do its best to ensure that its members can make a decent living, and to reduce instances of school administrators providing occasional teaching assignments on the basis of old school ties or other factors that have little to do with equity, fairness, economic need and academic subject qualifications.
6. Report the latest data on the OT dispatch list
Be It Resolved That this meeting direct the Executive to seek and make known to OTBU members, via each edition of the OTBU News, the Executive Report, and by any other appropriate means, the number of occasional teachers on the TDSB secondary panel Occasional Teaching dispatch list.
Rationale: This data is pertinent to the daily job prospects of most OTBU members. We have a right to know it, and the union has a duty to obtain and provide such information to members. When over 2000 members are chasing only 600, or fewer available assignments each school day, that spells poverty for hundreds. Getting accurate data is a step towards better management of the O T dispatch list.
Proposed Resolutions for submission to AMPA 2008
1. Restore the Right of Members to Vote on Trusteeship
BIRT OSSTF Bylaw 24 be amended by insertion of a Bylaw 24.3.1 which shall read: "The bargaining unit or district members shall vote on the recommendation or initiation of trusteeship at the Special General Meeting specified in Bylaw 24.3.0, and by a majority vote of those members present and voting may veto the imposition of trusteeship on their own local bargaining unit or district, as the case may be."
Rationale: The right of members to vote on any proposed trusteeship was rescinded by AMPA 2003, with drastic, immediate and lasting consequences for the Toronto OTBU. Members of the affected bargaining unit should be able to decide whether circumstances warrant the take over of their unit by provincial officials. Local problems should be resolved through local elections, or by other local corrective actions, under the direct control of members, rather than by provincial intervention potentially against the will of the membership.
2. For an End to Member Versus Member Charges at Judicial Council
Be It Resolved that OSSTF Bylaw 8 - Judicial Procedures, Bylaw 8.1.[b] be amended by deletion.
Rationale: Judicial Council should not be a forum for political opponents to lay charges against one another. That’s why other unions either don’t have such procedures, or rescinded them years ago, as did OPSEU in the 1980s. This amendment, if passed, would still enable the union to protect itself against strikebreakers through appropriate charges at Judicial Council. It would simply end the use of JC as a political forum. Judicial Council should never be a substitute for the electoral route. There are other measures available to ensure that OSSTF elections are fair. We don’t need ‘member versus member’ charges. They are a costly waste. Over $250,000 was spent in connection with the J.C. and Appeal Committee intervention into the life of the Toronto OTBU just in 2002-2003. That money would have been better spent on almost anything else. Let’s put local democracy first. Please support this motion.
3. For a Distinct Sector organization for Occasional Teachers in OSSTF
Be It Resolved that OSSTF Article 11 be amended by adding
“11.1.3 Occasional Teachers’ Sector”
and
also by adding to the OSSTF Constitution an “Occasional Teachers’ Sector Council Constitution” which is identical to the PSSP Sector Council Constitution, except that the term “Occasional Teachers” is substituted for the term “Professional Student Services Personnel” in every instance.
Rationale: The OSSTF policy is to ‘merge’ or dissolve occasional teachers’ bargaining units into the full-time secondary teachers’ units wherever possible. The establishment in 2005 of a Teachers’ Sector in OSSTF, in which OT s are vastly outnumbered, was a step in that direction. The immediate interests of Occasional Teachers and contract teachers are not always identical, and the working conditions, job security, benefits and remuneration of the two occupational groups are radically different. There are about 5,000 OT s, with a full-time equivalency in excess of 2,000 inside OSSTF. Democracy demands that OT s have our own Sector to protect and advance the interests of our members. Please support this resolution.
4. Equal Strike Pay
Be It Resolved That Occasional Teachers on legal strike who had teaching assignments for more than two teaching days on average per week during the previous 60 days, and who perform picket duty or other designated strike-related activities for at least four hours per school day on strike, be paid $175 per week in strike allowance.
(Estimated provincial annual budget cost: $50,000)
Rationale: Nobody wants to be on strike. Strike pay is no great reward for picket duty and the hard times of a strike situation. But there should be fairness and equality in OSSTF policy concerning strike pay. Currently, a teacher who becomes an LTO just days before a legal OT strike begins would receive $175 a week in strike pay. But a daily assigned Occasional Teacher who worked on average for 4 days a week for the six or seven months leading up to a legal OT strike would be paid only $70 a week in strike pay. How fair is that? In principle, strike pay should be the same for every striker. Perhaps the union cannot be expected to pay the full amount of strike pay to members who are not actively teaching. But the existing OSSTF policy is blatantly discriminatory. In the interests of democracy and membership unity, union policy should provide equal strike pay to active daily substitutes and LTOs.
A Short History of the Toronto Substitute Teachers' Union
In response to many requests, here is a brief account of the history of our union, told from the standpoint of an organizer.
Our story begins in the mid-1970s. When I graduated from teachers’ college at the University of Toronto there were few full-time teaching vacancies in southern Ontario. I worked as a substitute teacher and soon discovered how poorly my co-workers and I were being treated by management. In the early 1980s a group of us petitioned the school board to issue pay to subs every two weeks, instead of on a monthly basis, with a one month delay. We won that concession, and decided to organize to win more improvements. We had dreams of a big pay hike, a guaranteed minimum amount of work and a decent guaranteed salary per week, and paid fringe benefits. In 1983 we unionized City of Toronto substitute teachers; the secondary and elementary panels were organized together. We became a local of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. We had approached the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF), but it refused to organize us. Then OSSTF, led by Liz Barkley, conducted a raid on our secondary bargaining unit in 1986. We defeated the raid in a vote run by the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
OPSEU Local 595 (City of Toronto Substitute Teachers) waged a three-week long strike in 1990. Most people, including some of our own members, said it could not be done. But we picketed school board headquarters, its truck delivery depot, and a few large schools. Over three-quarters of our members honoured the strike (the Long Term Subs were the biggest problem). We got support from other unions on the line, and received plenty of media attention. We held large weekly rallies featuring live music, snack food and solidarity speakers, who came from far and wide. Finally, we won. We achieved break-through gains in wages (a 25% increase), job security (a capped list), pay for daily teaching experience, a paid union-run annual professional development day, and access to shared-cost health benefits. Over the course of 15 relatively happy years in OPSEU, we defended and improved upon those gains. We held general membership union meetings every month or two. We built up a large steward body, filed many successful grievances, conducted educational seminars, produced a regular ‘open to all in-put’ newsletter, held pre-holiday and summer socials, joined the Toronto Labour Council, and participated in many progressive campaigns within and beyond our work place. Our militant, democratic local union was widely admired.
But in late 1997 Ontario Conservative Premier Mike Harris ‘kidnapped’ us. By the stroke of a pen he legislated us out of OPSEU and into the teachers' federations. The new law separated secondary and elementary substitutes in the old downtown Toronto school board. (Some think this move was a sop to the secondary and elementary teachers’ federations for the government's removal of the high-dues-paying principals and vice principals from those unions.) The provincial government also amalgamated six local boards in Metro into one mega-school board for all of Toronto, the third largest school authority in North America.
In OSSTF, substitute teachers immediately faced a wall of hostility and a barrage of belittling treatment. Some of us had heard about the elitism, stifling formalism, and hyper-centralism of OSSTF, but up close and in person it was truly a case of culture shock. Provincial leaders of the union resented our local strength, our dedication to workers who they consider to be their inferiors, and our autonomy in action. In the 1998-99 round of teacher negotiations, provincial OSSTF officials signed local teacher contracts that increased on-call duties and the general work load of regular teachers. Thus, they blithely sacrificed the work and incomes of substitute teachers.
In 2001 a group consisting mostly of conservative-minded, retired teachers, who work as substitute teachers to supplement their pension incomes, launched a guerilla war inside our bargaining unit. They used parliamentary procedures to disrupt meetings.
In June 2002 our militant, democratic slate of incumbents, joined by new activist candidates, defeated the retirees-dominated slate in a very well-attended local election meeting. But the losers would not accept the result. They had laid disciplinary charges against us inside OSSTF. The charges were frivolous, vexatious, absurd – at best, exaggerated. They accused us of being rude to them; in reality they were gazing at their mirror image. But the truth did not matter. They had OSSTF money, lawyers and political power behind them.
The OSSTF Provincial Executive’s publicly stated policy favours dissolving substitute teacher bargaining units into the full-time teacher units where substitutes would continue to pay dues but would have almost no audible voice.
The OSSTF disciplinary body, the Judicial Council, made a mockery of due process, upheld a majority of the charges, and removed from office the 20-year long serving local President (the writer of these lines) who had just been re-elected. They barred me from holding office for 18 months. Upon appeal, they increased the ban to 32 months, and later hiked it up to 44 months. OSSTF officials purged my replacement, Maureen Malmud, then they purged the entire elected bargaining team. And then they removed the entire elected executive. They had already seized our operating funds back in October 2002. But the elected local Executive resisted the purge, and fought back. So, in Spring 2003, provincial OSSTF put the entire Occasional Teachers’ Bargaining Unit in trusteeship, which is a kind of union penalty box that allows the top bureaucrats to take full control.
During trusteeship the top brass ‘negotiated’ a collective agreement. The shameful deal they signed gave away our job security, liquidated our paid P.D., and allowed the employer to erode our benefits. To ratify the sell-out deal they conducted a bogus mail-in ballot. It was done Maggie Thatcher-style, preceded by false propaganda mailed to every member’s home. Then the top brass convened a meeting at an obscure location where officials pushed through an undemocratic replacement local constitution. Direct elections always held at membership meetings were suddenly replaced by bogus mail-in votes. Membership meetings, normally held five times a year, were reduced to a minimum of one a year. Membership on standing committees, reps to union-management committees, and delegates to labour council, always elected in the past, are now all appointed by the executive in camera.
Today we face a dire economic situation. Ordinary substitute teachers, workers who don't have pensions or other income, are hard pressed to make a living. Since the job security ‘cap’ on the dispatch list was abandoned by the OSSTF brass, the number of teachers on the dispatch list has increased by over 50%, while the number of daily jobs has declined. Most of the teachers added to the list are retirees. They are taking most of the available daily and long term assignments, leaving the rest of us with less work.
OSSTF officials show little concern about this disparity, about this income crisis. They continue to collect dues. Does it matter to them who the dues-payers are? In fact, they may think this disparity will help them to complete the purge, and to dissolve our unit into the larger full-time teachers’ unit, where substitutes would have little say.
But rank and file substitute teachers are fighting back. We formed the Toronto Substitute Teachers' Action Caucus. We take direct political action. We run candidates in OTBU elections. We leaflet OSSTF events, publish bulletins and newsletters, maintain a telephone help line (416 - 588-9090) and an informative web site. We lobby the Ontario Minister of Education, initiate legal action, and inform the entire labour movement about the justice of our cause.
We proudly joined with members of several other unions to initiate the Workers' Solidarity and Union Democracy Coalition. Every year we march in the Toronto Labour Day Parade and we hold open forums at conventions of the Ontario Federation of Labour.
"Give up" is a phrase not found in our vocabulary. We will fight until we restore union democracy. We will fight until we regain the job security, the decent pay and the working conditions we had – and more! We recognize that ours is a fight for a major change of direction, not only in OSSTF, but across the whole labour movement. We are up against powerful forces. But we also know that we are part of the working class. We know that working people produce all the goods and services, and that workers are the overwhelming majority of society. We just have to get management and their stooges off our backs.
Finally, we realize that we have no choice but to wage this struggle. For us, it's a matter of survival. Together, we shall overcome all obstacles. Together, we will do it sooner, rather than later. We invite you to join us today!
In solidarity,
Barry Weisleder,
Past-President (1983-2003), Toronto Substitute Teachers
The Toronto Substitute Teachers’ Action Caucus invites you to the
Annual General Meeting of the
Toronto Occasional Teachers’ Bargaining Unit
Do you want a democratic union that works for you?
Do you want an elected Negotiating Team that will fight for job security (a capped dispatch list), improved benefits and better working conditions?
Do you want a reduction in the Special Levy that wastes your money on an inaccessible office in a Don Mills luxury apartment building, that squanders your dues dollars on poorly written and uninformative newsletters, on fake P.D., and on an ‘open bar’ at membership meetings?
Do you want fair union elections held at union meetings where members show I.D., and then can question and vote for candidates? Where the votes can be quickly and honestly counted?
Do you want more than two general meetings a year – for the sake of accountability?
Do you want an easier to reach location for meetings? Near to a central subway station?
Do you want to put an end to hidden finances, secret executive minutes, corrupt cronyism, and self-appointed reps to union and school board committees?
Do you want to replace insensitive, arrogant, incompetent local leadership that fails to properly represent ALL substitute teachers?
Please attend and vote for a democratic constitution on
Tuesday, May 15 at 4:30 p.m.
at the Latvian Centre, corner of Eglinton Ave. E. and Credit Union Drive, 2 stop lights east of the Don Valley Parkway
For more information, call the Toronto Substitute Teachers’ Action Caucus
Help Line at 416 - 588-9090.
Visit our web site at: www.angelfire.com/un/torontosubstitutes
Question TDSB and union officials at P.D. event, Feb. 16, 9 a.m. at 60 Mobile Drive
Another Professional Development Activity Day without pay for Toronto substitute teachers is almost here.
The Occasional Teachers' Bargaining Unit is hosting an event at 60 Mobile Drive, OSSTF provincial office, just south of Eglinton Ave. and east of the Don Valley Parkway, starting at 9 a.m. on Friday, February 16, 2007.
TDSB officials will be there, so if you have any questions about the dysfunctional dispatch system, or any other work-related problems, this is your only opportunity this year to ask school board officials for a direct answer.
And if you want to know whatever happened to pay for P.D. Day, just read on....
Why is there no Pay for P.D. Day?
For over a dozen years, secondary school substitute teachers at school boards across Toronto were eligible to enjoy one PAID professional development activity day each year as long as they worked at least 80 days in the previous school year.
But in October 2003 OSSTF negotiators gave away paid P.D. for substitute teachers at the TDSB. They signed a contract with the Board without making any serious effort to negotiate a continuation of the paid P.D. benefit, which was first won in the substitute teachers’ strike of October 1990 at the former City of Toronto Board of Education. The OSSTF sell-out of our interests was part and parcel of a political purge.
OSSTF provincial officials removed the re-elected President of the Toronto Occasional Teachers’ Bargaining Unit in January 2003, and seized control of the OTBU in April 2003. They put our unit in ‘trusteeship’. Then in June 2003 OSSTF dissolved our elected bargaining team, and appointed fat cat provincial bureaucrats to take their place. In October 2003 those provincial bureaucrats signed a tentative agreement with the TDSB that eliminated our job security (the ‘cap’ on the computerized dispatch list), eroded our health benefits, settled for a wage increase which was nearly 6% less than the increase won for contract teachers – and eliminated our long standing paid P.D. To enforce the bad deal, OSSTF officials conducted a bogus mail-in vote. Hundreds of members received no ballot; scores of submitted ballots were not counted. Envelopes were opened by OSSTF staff before our scrutineers arrived to witness the official count.
Still the bad deal was declared ‘ratified’.
What was behind the OSSTF purge of Toronto OTBU elected leaders? What is behind the ongoing attack on our rights and on local union democracy?
Simply this: OSSTF officials cut the cost of servicing the OTBU. The next step is to dissolve the OTBU into the contract teachers’ bargaining unit. That way they would still get our dues money, but substitute teachers would have virtually no voice, and little say over our pay, benefits and working conditions.
The latest sell-out contracts are just a sample of what is to come: a further deterioration of substitute teachers’ rights and an attack on our ability to make a living. The elimination of the cap has already opened the OT list to a flood of retirees who are taking many of the daily and long term occasional teaching assignments away from substitutes who have no pension or any other significant income.
What can we do? Get involved. Fight back.
Support the Substitute Teachers’ Action Caucus.
Give us your e-mail address and telephone number so that you will be kept informed by genuine rank and file leaders and co-workers.
Join the campaign to restore democracy and local autonomy for substitute teachers in Toronto. For more information, call the Help Line: 416 - 588-9090, and visit our web site at: https://www.angelfire.com/un/torontosubstitutes
OSSTF
pays $3800 to settle lawsuit
over Toronto OTBU expenses
OSSTF officials repeatedly stated, for nearly three years, that the law
suit filed by the former President of the Toronto Occasional
Teachers’ Bargaining Unit, whom the OSSTF brass
undemocratically purged from office in 2003, had absolutely no merit.
But on July 5, OSSTF agreed to pay $3800 to settle that suit. Why?
The Small Claims Court judge indicated that he was inclined to agree
with most of the claims. They involved legitimate union expenses,
including for photocopying and rental of office space following the
July 2002 eviction of the OTBU from the District 12 building at 1482
Bathurst Street. Seeing the writing on the wall, OSSTF officials
decided to cut their losses and pay up. There can be no doubt that this
settlement represents a defeat for them. And that it constitutes a
victory, not only for the plaintiff, but for the effort to hold OSSTF
officials accountable -- and to begin to restore democratic rights in
the OTBU.
This result does not stand alone. In recent months, two decisions by
OSSTF disciplinary bodies have gone against protagonists of the purge
in the OTBU. Now, fresh charges and complaints about the conduct of the
May 2006 OTBU AGM, and the June bogus mail-in Executive election, are
pending.
Resistance is fruitful. It pays to fight the power of abusive
bureaucrats. It is possible to win -- even in the face of stubborn,
lying, vindictive officials, and even given the great inequality of
resources at play. Public knowledge of this settlement will make it a
little more difficult for provincial and district OSSTF leaders to act
arbitrarily, to withhold funds from small bargaining units, to refuse
or to block payment of legitimate local expenditures, and to hamper the
operation of substitute teacher units.
First they Purge you, Then they
‘Merge’ you
In
2002 - 2004 OSSTF purged the Toronto Occasional Teachers’
Bargaining Unit (OTBU) of its democratically elected officers. This
enabled OSSTF officials to cripple the best Occasional
Teachers’ collective agreement in Ontario, and to destroy a
democratic local constitution. Their aim: to dissolve the Toronto
substitute teachers’ bargaining unit, and all such units
across Ontario, into the larger regular contract teachers’
bargaining units where the poorly treated substitutes would still pay
dues, but have almost no audible voice in the union.
The costly and debilitating purge was initiated by a small group of
affluent retired teachers, led by former OSSTF/OTF president Liz
Barkley. Defeated in three rounds of local elections in 2002, Liz and
her friends laid spurious and vexatious charges against re-elected OTBU
President Barry Weisleder, against replacement OTBU President Maureen
Malmud, then against the remaining elected OTBU Executive, and finally
against the locally elected Bargaining Team members. The charges led to
kangaroo-court style disciplinary trials inside OSSTF. The trials
provided diplomatic cover for a political purge of Stalinist
proportions.
Over
the past four years, OSSTF officials have ...
evicted
the OTBU from the OSSTF District12 building (where the OTBU paid
$12,000 annually for its use of office space) on trumped up
‘building security’ charges; seized Toronto OTBU
funds to cripple a legal defence of democratically elected local
officers; removed and banned Barry from holding office (first for 18
months, then 32 months, then 44 months), and later banned Maureen (for
12 months). Most requests to appeal J.C. decisions were dismissed. But
Ontario Superior Court Justice Douglas Coo found “a strong
prima facie case” had been made that OSSTF violated its own rules and natural
justice. OSSTF imposed Trusteeship on the OTBU for 14
months, after the Provincial Executive and OSSTF legal counsel
knowingly misled the OSSTF Annual Meeting of Provincial Assembly (AMPA)
2003 in order to
pressure delegates to remove the historic right of local members to
veto Trusteeship. Subsequently, OSSTF officials negotiated two sets of
very regressive contracts which made major concessions to Management on
job security, on paid P.D. and other benefits, and accepted inferior
wage increments. The contracts were ‘ratified’ by a
bogus mail-in ballot process which failed to mail ballots to hundreds
of members, misled members as to the true nature of the contract
settlement, and corrupted the ballot count.
‘Elections’ are a similar mail-in farce. Now, only
two General Meetings occur per year. The Executive (now under Liz
Barkley-henchman David Hopkins) meets in secret. Minutes are kept
secret. Standing committees are appointed by the bogus OTBU Executive,
and meet in secret. Members are not allowed to question the President
or Treasurer at the AGM, and no financial balance sheet is presented
there.
What
ever happened to membership democracy and leadership accountability in
OSSTF?
Help
put a stop to growing undemocratic practices and misrepresentation in
OSSTF. Make a donation to the Substitute Teachers’ Action
Caucus. Remember: An injury to one, is an injury to all.
Contact the Toronto Substitute Teachers’ Action Caucus at 416
- 588-9090. Visit our web site at: www.angelfire.com/un/torontosubstitutes
OSSTF Hurts Substitute Teachers
The
Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) really
went to bat for its Toronto substitute teacher members and won
important gains (see below) in a new contract ratified on February 20,
2006. In sharp contrast, the Ontario Secondary School
Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) signed a deal for its Toronto
secondary school substitute teacher members in September 2005, ending a
round of bargaining that was secretive, undemocratically conducted, and
farcical in content. The result is that Toronto Secondary Occasional
Teachers (OTs) continue to lose ground.
No ‘Cap’. No Job Security.
Dispatch system chaos.
The Toronto District School Board’s Secondary O.T. Dispatch
list has gone from 1200 names in 2002, to over 2100 names in 2006.
Normally there are less than 500 jobs a day. Still, OSSTF officials
insisted on giving away the numerical limit, or
‘cap’ on the OT list, as a concession to TDSB
management.
The new, dysfunctional ‘Smart Find’ automated
dispatch system, which the TDSB implemented without consulting the
union, caused a major job placement crisis. The resulting chaos, the
massive loss of work and income, all underscore the cruel folly of
OSSTF giving away the job security ‘cap’.
Most members, especially those who rely on substitute teaching to make
a living, those who have no pension and no other significant income,
want the ‘cap’ restored at 1200 names, or less.
This could easily be done by attrition. But the self-appointed Toronto
OTBU negotiators and provincial OSSTF officials simply ignored
members’ chief concerns. Instead, they agreed to a contract
clause that created a new position: “Regularly assigned Short
Term Occasional Teacher”. This position involves an ongoing
assignment in a given school or group of schools. These jobs can be
filled without regard to occasional teacher seniority, and without
regard to the financial needs of the applicants. The contract language
permits school principals to (continue to) indulge in favouritism and
cronyism.
Who benefits from this sad arrangement? Does it promote social justice,
or just greater inequality and poverty? Is this the behaviour of a
union, or an example of an elitist job trust?
Wages caught in a time warp
In 2002-03, regular contract teachers got more than a
12% wage increase. Occasional teachers then got half that much
– and never made up the short fall. The Toronto OTBU
agreement provides an 11.75% raise over four years. That’s
less than 3% a year. Gasoline and home heating fuel prices skyrocketed
in 2005. The cost of living in Toronto is the most expensive in Canada.
The Toronto OTBU base pay should lead Ontario -- yet it sits in the
bottom one-third of the province’s OT contracts. Then- OSSTF
negotiator Moe Jacobs promised to try to eliminate the three lowest per
diem pay steps. Instead, his deal widens the gap between the bottom and
the top steps, from $23 to $25, by 2008. Shame.
No meaningful benefit improvements
There is no reduction in the number of days required to qualify for
health benefits, and no reduction in employee premiums. Most members
find the rates unaffordable. Pathetically, the paid Professional
Development Day, which OSSTF gave away in 2004, is replaced by a
“voluntary, unpaid” P.D. day, and its content is
subject to Management approval – just like postings on the OT
school bulletin board.
What about work load (extra on-calls, anyone?), and the availability of
useful information and teaching materials in the schools? Well, those
issues were sent to a joint committee for study, with no
deadline.
Members want action on long-standing, pressing needs, not more study of
them.
What Toronto Elementary OT s Got
1. Guaranteed the same timetable for the substitute teacher as that of
the teacher s/he is replacing.
2. Daily O.T. experience is banked, starting Sept. 2006, and is counted
towards LTO pay grid placement as of Sept. 2008.
3. LTOs are paid on the contract teacher pay grid automatically, and
LTO status starts on the 12th consecutive day in an assignment as of
Sept. 2008. Daily O.T.s get first right to apply for LTO jobs.
4. Two days minimum notice is required for any in-classroom teaching
evaluation.
5. Management must consult the union on any changes to the dispatch
system.
How did ETFO win all this? ETFO
involved members in an open and democratic process. It devoted serious
union resources to a public campaign called ‘Substitute
teachers have no substitutes’, which included huge membership
meetings, a serious strike vote, aggressive radio ads, and tough
bargaining.
What’s wrong with OSSTF?
A classic case of ... different priorities. Different methods.
* For more
information on the history of our union, please visit Our Story
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