Thread by @bryinlyin

college faculty bargaining update!

today, the CEO of the College Employer Council (which represents management/the province) sent an "open letter" to OPSEU/CAAT-A (the faculty union)

it's as bad as you expect. read on if you want to get your blood boiling this chilly afternoon:

here's the letter. i'm reluctant to drag it into the light of day, but for transparency's sake you're welcome to suffer through it yourself:

collegeemployercouncil.ca/en/news/letter…

i'm going to focus on two things: 1) why it's pure management propaganda, & 2) how to turn it against the CEC

to quickly summarize, the letter is nominally addressed to JP Hornick, the chair of the bargaining committee, & Smokey Thomas, the president of OPSEU (who, strangely, has spent much of the last few months either criticizing the CAAT-A bargaining unit or defending Doug Ford)

the gist is that the CEC feels the union has made "false or misleading" statements about the bargaining process, which the author then claims to refute, point-by-point

you might think "ok, fair enough, the CEC is asserting its version of events, why wouldn't they?"

but when you dig into the details, the CEC's entire argument seems to be "we disagree with the union's proposals, therefore the union is fundamentally unreasonable".

the rest of the piece is an offensive appeal to words like "practicality" & "realism" without any substance

trying to reach above the actual terms being discussed towards a) authority (Smokey) & b) moral vagaries is a tried & true tactic of institutions trying to distract people from their material agenda

the irony is that the CEC shoots itself in the foot midway through the letter:

after regurgitating the criticisms of the biased mediator the CEC & OPSEU leadership installed last month, the author enumerates some of the demands the union has made that "the CEC has made clear can never be accepted by the college"

these include:

- paid prep time for online courses
- binding neutral arbitration of the bargaining process
- faculty ownership of curriculum they developer and/or the right to consent to its reuse
- broadening union membership to part-timers

do these sound like outrageous demands to you? like the blue-sky naivete of a bargaining team who refuses to compromise?

to me they sound like pretty reasonable asks

& not only is the CEC rejecting them this round; they're claiming such proposals can NEVER be accepted

of course, the author goes to great lengths to distort the union's proposals

for example, faculty oversight over curriculum is described as: "[the College] foregoing the ownership of materials that the Colleges have paid for"

like, wait a second

"materials the Colleges have paid for" is precisely what is being contested here. the CEC's language treats the decision as foregone; as if there's *no possibility of compromise*

again, this is a blatant attempt to use big words to bypass the union's right to negotiate

hilariously, this section of the letter ends with

"Bargaining requires compromise, which the CEC has demonstrated throughout the bargaining process."

full stop. no further explanation required, apparently?

still, the last portion of the letter is the most insidious

here, the author claims that the union has wrongly accused the CEC of having the ability to impose terms and conditions if bargaining fails

his response is "Colleges have never imposed terms that negatively impact individual faculty members."

he then repeats this statement with much self-seriousness, but tweaks the end:

"...negatively impact an individual faculty member’s current working terms and conditions"

first of all, returning to the union's assertion that the CEC can impose terms and conditions: there's no refutation because it's true

more importantly, that "rephrasing" of the CEC's pledge not to harm faculty is an absolute wasp's nest

read it again: "The CEC/Colleges will not impose terms which will negatively impact any individual faculty member’s current working terms and conditions."

OK, so what's actually being said here is

"the CEC will not impose terms that negatively impact the terms under which individual faculty already work"

to me that sounds a whole lot like "we won't negatively alter your current contract as long as nothing about it changes"

which does NOT express a willingness to bargain

even if i'm wrong, the circularity of the CEC's language feels custom-built to be plausibly denied down the line when management imposes some devastating new policy against faculty

what follows is more blame-inversion: the CEC attacks the union's assertion that strike mandates do not always lead to strikes, calling it "inconsistent" with past actions

the irony, again, is that strike mandates & actions are almost wholly a direct result of CEC inflexibility!

the letter ends with a paternalistic appeal to Smokey, praising his recent accusations against *his own bargaining unit* as a reasonable interpretation of events

this is a cheap attempt to conflate political friction between OPSEU leaders with CEC righteousness

whatever the precise reasons for tensions among union leadership (i have my opinions, but i'm just a bystander), it is hugely inappropriate for a management organization to claim it understands the desires of *the union itself* better than the workers who actually sustain it

CAAT-A brings its proposals directly from college faculty. that's all the CEC needs to know.

Smokey is not a college educator. JP and other members of the bargaining team *are*.

they don't need OPSEU oversight to know when they're being bullied by the province

OK, so that's the letter. it's hot garbage. but apart from the content itself, what does it mean?

here's a thought: if the CEC was totally confident in their plan, they wouldn't be reaching out in such a public (& garishly dishonest) way to try to control the narrative

i don't mean to overstate the CEC's vulnerability. remember, they *are* legally able to ram through their agenda if they don't want to bargain

BUT they also know the power of public opinion and how effectively it can amplify the collective power of the union

this letter is a gamble: the CEC thinks if they position themselves as the victims of union bullying and CAAT-A "impracticality", maybe they can sway people emotionally; make us feel like management has our best interests at heart

but as this letter confirms again and again and again, their "good guy" posture is smoke and mirrors to distract us from their actual agenda

they even admit it! in their minds, the CEC doesn't owe faculty or students any of improvements the union has proposed

with this in mind, the best thing we can do as union supporters is loudly remind the CEC & Graham Lloyd & College management that no amount of moral pandering or sleight of hand will distract from the CEC's refusal to meet CAAT-A's reasonable proposals for change

just as importantly, keep letting the bargaining team & faculty (unionized or not!) know that you stand with them - not their bosses, not the OPSEU leaders second-guessing them

the louder we are, the more pressure we put on the CEC to do their damn job & get back to bargaining