Preparing for Bargaining at St. Lawrence College

On November 13th I drove up to Cornwall to visit with the stewards and officers of OPSEU Local 417, representing faculty at St. Lawrence College.

St. Lawrence was founded in 1967, and has campuses in Kingston, Cornwall, and Brockville.  It has approximately 6,700 full time and 20,000 part time students, and boasts a nationally reknowned music theatre program.  Local 417 currently represents 195 full time faculty and approximately 250 partial load.  The number of part-time faculty is also growing steadily.

Graeme Aubert

Local 417 president Graeme Aubert has 40 years of experience as a professor.  In our discussion he talked about the college system at its founding, and of how sufficient funding allowed for faculty professional development, and a more collegial work environment.  He also noted that faculty's 1984 victory in winning the Standard Workload Form (SWF) brought workload equity to the college.  Before the SWF it was easy for management to control faculty by "playing favourites" and punishing independently minded professors with overwhelming workloads.

The faculty at St. Lawrence are beginning to experience many of the same issues that are plaguing other colleges.  Like Mohawk and Cambrian, St. Lawrence has a curriculum licensing agreement with a private college operating well within their vicinity.  Alpha International Academy in Scarborough teaches business, general arts and english programs to international students.  The curriculum was developed by St. Lawrence professors and OPSEU members, but has now been outsourced to non-members.  With no intellectual property protection, faculty's knowledge and expertise can be used to put them out of work.

At our meeting a steward from counseling talked about how the climate of cost-cutting and reduction in full time faculty is leading to increased job stress and decreased service.  One conselor saw 119 people in September and October alone, and 63% of the clients had serious mental health issues.  With growing student enrollment and a higher stress learning environment, the work of college counselors is more important than ever.  In spite of this, full time counseling positions are in decline, and those left to handle the heavy case-loads are being worn down.  At the Kingston campus alone, this past fall 3 of the 5 counselors were on long term disability for stress-related issues.





Local 417 talked about challenges in mobilizing their membership, and especially the difficulty of communicating with their large roster of partial load faculty.  In addition, the fact that St. Lawrence's campuses reflect three very different communities with distinct demographics makes it difficult to present a unified message. 

These are challenges faced by several locals, and the hard-working team at Local 417 stress the need for improved communication during bargaining.  Putting clear, factual, and relevant information in the hands of our members will enable them to get behind bargaining demands, and will lead to much-needed success at the negotiating table.