On the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Faculty Negotiations and Strike Vote Wed, Feb 8. 2006
I teach at an Ontario College of Applied Arts and Technology (CAAT). On the news this morning it was announced that the CAAT faculty had voted in favor of a strike. I'm writing this posting to present my personal position on the issues and provide some web links for anyone interested -- including any of my students who have wandered over to this page.
First, the links:
Now, the issues:
There are two main issues at stake: (1) workload and (2) salaries.
(1) The workload of CAAT faculty is assessed using a tool called the Standard Workload Formula (SWF). The SWF specifies factors for different instructional modes, types of assessment, and preparation situations. These factors are added together for each section of a course and then multiplied by the number of students in that section to determine how much work is involved in teaching it, in terms of hours per week. So a long-established course that had 3 hours of direct student contact and straightforward assessment, with a small class size and taught by a teacher who had recently taught the same course, would be calculated are requiring a fairly small number of hours per week for teaching, preparation, and marking. On the other hand, a course that was brand-new, had 5 hours of direct student contact and a lot of complicated assessment, and which had a large class size would be calculated as taking many hours of work each week. This makes sense. Additional time is added for staff meetings, student help time (when the faculty member is available for consultation by students), and other projects such as research projects and planning for new courses or programs, and a total workload is determined. Workloads are typically in the 40-to-45 hour-per-week range.
At the last round of negotiations, the Union contended that the factors used in the SWF calculation were inaccurate. A committee was set up to study the issue, but -- if you believe the Union side of the story -- the Union and Management members of the committee didn't make much progress together. Ultimately the Union surveyed its members and also asked hundreds of professors to fill out time diaries to determine exactly how much time they were spending on tasks such as preparation and evaluation. This led to demands by the Union for revised workload factors.
If the workload factors are adjusted, either the number of students per class or the number of contact-hours per professor will have to be reduced. The Union favors smaller class sizes, while the Colleges say the result will be less contact time. In either case, the Colleges say they can't afford the extra staff that will be required.
The Colleges are insisting that Professors be permitted to use averaging so that, for example, they could take on an extra-large workload in one semester and a lighter workload in the next semester. This would be voluntary -- but the Union is concerned that faculty supervisors will find ways to pressure Professors into "voluntarily" accepting averaging against their better judgment.
(2) The Colleges are offering what works out to a 2.43% increase for each of 4 years. Based on an arbitrator's report after the 1989 strike, the Comparator Groups for CAAT Faculty are supposed to be Ontario High School Teachers and University Professors. Our maximum salaries are supposed to be between the maximum salaries of those comparator groups.
The Union contends that the salary offer does not keep pace with the comparator groups and will cause us to fall behind High School Teachers. The College say this is not true, that the offer is more generous than that accepted by High School teachers (though they neglect to mention University Professors at all). The difference in the calculations appears to hinge on a 0.5% conditional amount included in the HS Teacher's contracts.
My Take on the Issues
First, the workload concerns are real. I have had semesters where I've worked almost straight through the night for days on end to prepare material for a new course, or to mark several hundred projects (each taking at least 25 minutes). The "Super Weekend" between exams and the Monday due date for final marks is always exhausting. And every so often a Professor just loses it, physically or mentally, due to the workload. (That said, I think I work in one of the better campuses of one of the better colleges in the system, because I haven't witnessed some of the workload problems that have been discussed). I must also admit that the scheduling flexibility in this job is wonderful -- we have the ability to schedule our prep time and marking as we see fit, which means that I can write course notes and mark on a Saturday and do something else on a non-contact day during the week. But that perk doesn't make the week any shorter!
Second, regardless of what the Union and the College are saying about comparator groups, the fact of the matter is that many of the Professors (especially newer ones) are finding it hard to get by on their salaries in the GTA. I do about $20,000 in consulting each year over and above my teaching so that I keep my finger on the pulse of the industry and stay current with technology -- something I think my students expect me to do -- but the truth is that I also need that consulting money just to cover essential bills (and anyone who knows me knows that I live simply).
The real comparator group for most Professors is our peers in industry. Most of us got into teaching after years of working in our respective industries and, frankly, we have taken a pay cut to teach. It's worth it, because teaching is very rewarding in a non-monetary way, and because there are some nice perks such as the scheduling flexibility (discussed above). However, if teaching doesn't pay the bills, a return to industry is a simple choice that most of us could readily make.
Will there be a strike? I don't know. The Union thinks that the Ray Report and publicly-stated McGuinty government direction are at odds with the Colleges' position, and that if we really want to improve the quality of education, we must spend more on faculty. From this perspective the Union is confident that if this dispute went to arbitration, the arbitrator would in large part side with them. On the other hand, the Colleges sound adamant in their statement that there's just not enough money in the pot. There's a month to sort this out, and the two sides have often gone to the "11th hour" in the past. If we do go out on strike, history suggests that the strike might be ~3 weeks in length, end in binding arbitration, and that the semester will not be lost to the students.
Obviously, I hope we don't have a strike. I think the money issues can be worked out (pretty much straight down the middle) but someone is going to have to blink on the workload issues.
Feel free to post comments below. What's your take on the situation? What's bugging you about the strike? What's the shortest path to a good resolution?
Ontario Public Sector Employee's Union CAAT Academic Staff (Faculty Union)
Now, the issues:
There are two main issues at stake: (1) workload and (2) salaries.
(1) The workload of CAAT faculty is assessed using a tool called the Standard Workload Formula (SWF). The SWF specifies factors for different instructional modes, types of assessment, and preparation situations. These factors are added together for each section of a course and then multiplied by the number of students in that section to determine how much work is involved in teaching it, in terms of hours per week. So a long-established course that had 3 hours of direct student contact and straightforward assessment, with a small class size and taught by a teacher who had recently taught the same course, would be calculated are requiring a fairly small number of hours per week for teaching, preparation, and marking. On the other hand, a course that was brand-new, had 5 hours of direct student contact and a lot of complicated assessment, and which had a large class size would be calculated as taking many hours of work each week. This makes sense. Additional time is added for staff meetings, student help time (when the faculty member is available for consultation by students), and other projects such as research projects and planning for new courses or programs, and a total workload is determined. Workloads are typically in the 40-to-45 hour-per-week range.
At the last round of negotiations, the Union contended that the factors used in the SWF calculation were inaccurate. A committee was set up to study the issue, but -- if you believe the Union side of the story -- the Union and Management members of the committee didn't make much progress together. Ultimately the Union surveyed its members and also asked hundreds of professors to fill out time diaries to determine exactly how much time they were spending on tasks such as preparation and evaluation. This led to demands by the Union for revised workload factors.
If the workload factors are adjusted, either the number of students per class or the number of contact-hours per professor will have to be reduced. The Union favors smaller class sizes, while the Colleges say the result will be less contact time. In either case, the Colleges say they can't afford the extra staff that will be required.
The Colleges are insisting that Professors be permitted to use averaging so that, for example, they could take on an extra-large workload in one semester and a lighter workload in the next semester. This would be voluntary -- but the Union is concerned that faculty supervisors will find ways to pressure Professors into "voluntarily" accepting averaging against their better judgment.
(2) The Colleges are offering what works out to a 2.43% increase for each of 4 years. Based on an arbitrator's report after the 1989 strike, the Comparator Groups for CAAT Faculty are supposed to be Ontario High School Teachers and University Professors. Our maximum salaries are supposed to be between the maximum salaries of those comparator groups.
The Union contends that the salary offer does not keep pace with the comparator groups and will cause us to fall behind High School Teachers. The College say this is not true, that the offer is more generous than that accepted by High School teachers (though they neglect to mention University Professors at all). The difference in the calculations appears to hinge on a 0.5% conditional amount included in the HS Teacher's contracts.
My Take on the Issues
First, the workload concerns are real. I have had semesters where I've worked almost straight through the night for days on end to prepare material for a new course, or to mark several hundred projects (each taking at least 25 minutes). The "Super Weekend" between exams and the Monday due date for final marks is always exhausting. And every so often a Professor just loses it, physically or mentally, due to the workload. (That said, I think I work in one of the better campuses of one of the better colleges in the system, because I haven't witnessed some of the workload problems that have been discussed). I must also admit that the scheduling flexibility in this job is wonderful -- we have the ability to schedule our prep time and marking as we see fit, which means that I can write course notes and mark on a Saturday and do something else on a non-contact day during the week. But that perk doesn't make the week any shorter!
Second, regardless of what the Union and the College are saying about comparator groups, the fact of the matter is that many of the Professors (especially newer ones) are finding it hard to get by on their salaries in the GTA. I do about $20,000 in consulting each year over and above my teaching so that I keep my finger on the pulse of the industry and stay current with technology -- something I think my students expect me to do -- but the truth is that I also need that consulting money just to cover essential bills (and anyone who knows me knows that I live simply).
The real comparator group for most Professors is our peers in industry. Most of us got into teaching after years of working in our respective industries and, frankly, we have taken a pay cut to teach. It's worth it, because teaching is very rewarding in a non-monetary way, and because there are some nice perks such as the scheduling flexibility (discussed above). However, if teaching doesn't pay the bills, a return to industry is a simple choice that most of us could readily make.
Will there be a strike? I don't know. The Union thinks that the Ray Report and publicly-stated McGuinty government direction are at odds with the Colleges' position, and that if we really want to improve the quality of education, we must spend more on faculty. From this perspective the Union is confident that if this dispute went to arbitration, the arbitrator would in large part side with them. On the other hand, the Colleges sound adamant in their statement that there's just not enough money in the pot. There's a month to sort this out, and the two sides have often gone to the "11th hour" in the past. If we do go out on strike, history suggests that the strike might be ~3 weeks in length, end in binding arbitration, and that the semester will not be lost to the students.
Obviously, I hope we don't have a strike. I think the money issues can be worked out (pretty much straight down the middle) but someone is going to have to blink on the workload issues.
Feel free to post comments below. What's your take on the situation? What's bugging you about the strike? What's the shortest path to a good resolution?
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