Work-to-rule and Bargaining FAQ for Students

Student Information and FAQ

Attached, please find a FAQ for Students that has been adapted from the FAQ that was generated by Local 556 (George Brown).  We hope that faculty will share it to students who have questions or are experiencing frustrations with work-to-rule.  

Work-to-Rule Student FAQ (pdf)
Work-to-Rule Student FAQ pg. 1 (png)
Work-to-Rule Student FAQ pg. 2 (png)
Work-to-Rule Student FAQ pg. 3 (png)
Work-to-Rule Student FAQ pg. 4 (png)

As well, you might choose to share the following brief overview of bargaining and work-to-rule, which was targeted to students:

https://ontariocollegeprof.wordpress.com/2021/12/15/ten-things-ontario-college-students-should-know-about-their-professors-current-bargaining-with-the-colleges/

Lastly, we continue to encourage all faculty to use the following text in the signature of their College emails: 

In response to the College Employer Council’s decision to impose employment conditions following the College Faculty voted to support strike actions (https://www.collegefaculty.org/2021/12/17/opseu-sefpo-stands-in-support-of-college-faculty-members/), Ontario college faculty are now following work-to-rule guidelines established by the Faculty Bargaining Team.

Faculty have chosen to focus on our students’ needs and not interrupt College courses with a strike at this time, while demanding that our employer negotiate a fair resolution to this labour dispute. Work-to-rule means that we will be working only the time outlined by our current contract and workload assignments, or job descriptions. This means that we may not be available for additional, volunteer work that we may normally do, or work outside of regular work hours. Therefore, we may take more time than usual to respond to emails or other forms of communication and any additional work-related requests.

Currently we are in Phase 2 of the planned work-to-rule job actions. For more information on these actions including a work-to-rule FAQ, please visit: https://www.collegefaculty.org/work-to-rule/.  We appreciate your patience and your support in our efforts to improve working conditions for Ontario college faculty and the learning conditions of Ontario college students.

Information for Partial-Load Faculty

One question that we’ve received was how, specifically, Partial-Load faculty should address the issue of insufficient time to complete their week’s work, when speaking with a supervisor.  

We propose the following language as a draft, to be modified to suit the circumstances at your own college, or the needs of each particular faculty member:  

“Hello __________,

As you know, in response to the imposition of terms and conditions by the CEC and the colleges, CAAT-A members are now engaged in a legal work-to-rule labour action. Under this action, all faculty members are to work to the letter of their job description or contract.

According to the CEC, the total workload hours per week for a ___-hour partial-load contract is ____ hours. I have now reached [am approaching] this total. Please advise on where I should direct the remaining work that exceeds the amount of time I have been attributed.

Thank you.”


The teaching hours and workload hours can be filled in, based upon the following chart: 
 

TCHTotal Workload Hours incl. Teaching
715.19
817.36
919.53
1021.70
1123.87
1226.04

In solidarity,
JP, Jonathan, Kathleen, Michelle, Ravi, Rebecca, and Shawn