Thread by @bryinlyin

i want to return to two of the most important sites of tension in CAAT-A's struggle to bring the CEC back to the bargaining table:

part-time faculty & intellectual property

believe it or not, these issues are much more related than they might seem at first

i've already tried to speak a bit to the CEC's long term agenda for the ontario college system -- an aggressive shift towards privatization, "micro-credentials" (basically corporate certificates), and deep devaluing of faculty labor & student education

the CEC has its own euphemisms for these changes, centered on words like "student choice", "real-world skills", and "efficient program delivery"

these are typical marketing pitches - they might sound fair or even necessary in a brochure, but the details are intentionally vague

luckily, we have evidence like Graham Lloyd (CEO of the CEC)'s inflammatory letter to OPSEU to give insight into how exactly management plans to implement their vision

spoiler alert: it's all bad for students & faculty

let's start with part-time workers. what's the actual conflict here?

the college system has (afaik) a few different categories of non-full-time work: "part timers", "partial load" and "sessional"

part-timers officially work "less than 7 hours" a week, partial-load folks work 7-12, & sessional workers work more than 12

due to historical anti-union pressure & policy at the provincial level, only partial-load faculty are currently able to join the union

(CAAT-A actually led an organizing push to bring all part-time faculty back into the union in 2017, but the results of this process remain unknown because the CEC has continuously sabotaged the ontario labor board's tallying of the votes)

within these already-unfair strictures, CAAT-A's current proposals to the CEC have focused on low or no cost measures to ensure that partial load faculty have basic benefits like health coverage in the gaps between terms & clearer mechanisms for retaining their roles over time

but the CEC won't budge. in fact, it is precisely some of these proposals that Graham Lloyd claimed would "never" be accepted by college management.

so, if money's not the issue, what is? why would the CEC refuse even basic seniority privileges for long time contractors?

one plausible explanation, especially once we factor in the CEC's belligerence around curriculum ownership,

is that college management wants faculty to be 100% replaceable

one of the greatest strengths of unions & stable, permanent jobs, is that people who work together gain a sense of continuity, the ability to legacy-plan, and influence over the culture of the organization that employs them

for years, the CEC has fought tooth and nail against job security for part AND full-time workers, including tactics like eliminating permanent roles when faculty retire and preventing schools from creating full-time jobs even when student demand is booming

avoiding the higher costs associated with permanent employment is certainly part of the equation, but the CEC clearly has a deeper agenda around breaking down the power of faculty to shape the future of the college system

i still can't get over the line in Graham Lloyd's letter where he describes the union's efforts to grow its membership as, and i quote,

"stripping work from other employee groups to augment the faculty bargaining unit."

the "other employee groups" he refers to here are, & i can't believe i have to clarify this, part time faculty who *want to join the union but can't* because the CEC is violating their labor rights

the arrogance of claiming to protect people against their own desires is galling

but the CEC's vision is precisely this:

a college system where employees have no voice of their own, where the union and the collective power it builds shrinks every year, where management subdivides every retired full-time role into exponentially more "3 hour" contracts

the one missing piece in the CEC's plan is where they'll get the curriculum to supply their underwaged, non-union employees

that's where intellectual property rights come in

you may be surprised to learn (i was, my partner was!) that right now, colleges "own" a surprising amount of the content their faculty produce. multimedia presentations, curriculum materials; basically anything that can be documented and copied.

this was never a good thing, but in the pre-COVID world a much larger proportion of teaching and curriculum development happened live and in-person. recorded lectures & digital delivery weren't the rule like they are now. college education has fundamentally changed since 2020.

recognizing these changes, CAAT-A brought simple, reasonable proposals to the CEC to ensure that faculty have a say in when and how their work is re-used.

again, the CEC has made these requests a major sticking point

to once again quote my good friend Graham, why should management forego "the ownership of materials that the Colleges have paid for"?

even if that ownership & those materials were defined in 2017 under completely different working conditions?

why would the CEC be so stubborn?

have a quick look at this article:

thestar.com/news/canada/20…

for those who aren't able to read: earlier this year concordia university was caught running a class via the digital lectures of a prof who *died in 2019*, unbeknownst to his students

when they were called out, the school claimed his lectures were simply "teaching materials"

think about the implications of this. if an educational institution owns the words coming out of your mouth and has the means to reproduce them, then you, the real live human who once said those words, are no longer necessary

i know this sounds like bad sci-fi, but it's already happening. public colleges in ontario are considering reselling their program content to private institutions

& if they believe they already own that content in full, i highly doubt they plan to compensate the minds behind it

i hope it's becoming clearer how these labor & ownership issues are linked, and why the CEC is so obstinate despite the low material cost of CAAT-A's proposals

the CEC isn't fighting short term gains; they're fighting for permanent control & a college system without union power

as ever, and more importantly: you don't have to take the bait.

if you're a student, tell your profs and your administrators that you support faculty demands!

if you're faculty, talk to your coworkers; don't let the CEC or management dictate the terms of the conversation!

& if you're full time: reach out to the part-timers at your school.

they need your support; they need to know you see them as equal collaborators in the struggle against forced austerity

often, they are the young, brilliant people who will lead this fight in the future!