The Outcome of 2017 Bargaining: The Kaplan Award

The Kaplan Award, Interest Arbitration 2017

This interest mediation-arbitration was convened to settle the terms and conditions of the collective agreement between the parties to end the 2017 college faculty strike, in accordance with the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Labour Dispute Resolution Act, 2017.

Click here to read the full decision: Award of Arbitrator Kaplan OPSEU and College Employer Council, December 2017

What did the Kaplan Award do for Ontario College Faculty?

In 2017 interest arbitration, the Union was successful on nearly every point and nearly every College Employer Council (CEC) concession was quashed. See the full list below.

Perhaps the more significant items were for Partial Load faculty (at Fanshawe partial-load employers increased from fewer than 300 PL to  approximately 450 in 2021), the academic freedom language which is a longer-term systemic change, establishing that online teaching hours (including asynchronous) are to be considered actual teaching contact hours, and maintaining Article 2 Staffing which allowed our Local to secure 20 new full-time positions at Fanshawe over a 3-year period.

The disappointment came with the election of the Doug Ford government, which on its first day disbanded the Ontario College Task Force and later on repealed Bill 148.

Where the Union’s position was adopted or modified:

• Wage increases of 1.75% (retroactive to October 1st), 2%, 2%, 2%
• Staffing Article 2 returns to its previous form – no freeze or alteration to the language
• Workload Article 11.01 B2 – establishes that a Teaching Contact Hour is a TCH, no matter how it is delivered, online or in person
• Workload Article 11.02 C2 – Workload Monitoring Group (WMG) can now formally consider the number of students requiring accommodation as affecting teacher workload
• Article 13 – Copyright and Academic Freedom article – academic freedom incorporated directly into the CA, a historic win
• Benefits Article 19.01A – Paramedical coverage cap increases from $1,500/yr to $2,000/yr
• Benefits: Added social workers and psychotherapists to the list of paramedical providers
• Article 26.03 B Partial Load – College will endeavour to have contracts to partial-load faculty prior to the start of the term
• Article 26.10 C Partial Load – moves partial-load faculty up the salary grid twice as fast
• Article 26.10 D Partial Load – establishes seniority for partial-load faculty through a registry
• Partial Load Registry Article 26.10 E – Allocates partial-load work based on seniority
• Article 27.11 B – Improves consideration of PL members in filling FT vacancies
• Job Classification Plans – Appointment Factors: raised maximum credit for formal qualifications from 6 years to 7 years
• Letter of Understanding: Parties agree to review the class definition of a Counsellor and consider updates

Where the Union was successful but the Ford Government later intervened:

• Equal Pay for Equal Work: The arbitration process became moot when Bill 148 was repealed.
• Provincial Task Force to examine faculty complement, precarious work, provincial funding of the colleges, student mental health, academic governance, intellectual property was cancelled by the Ford Government and that is being challenged in the courts.

Where the College Employer Council’s position was adopted or modified:

• 4-year term for the Collective Agreement
• Article 2.03D – the Union can’t rely on old 2014-2017 staffing data to file staffing grievances
• Job Classification Plans – Appointment Factors: Management can allocate up to 5 discretionary steps at hiring, can ask to allocate more, but to do so requires union consent “which shall not be unreasonably withheld”