OPSEU launches campaign to organize college support staff

Part-time employees lack job security, benefits: Union

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) recently launched a campaign to unionize part-time support staff at the province’s 24 colleges of applied arts and technology.

The effort aims to bring thousands of part-time workers under the union’s umbrella.

According to OPSEU, part-time college support staff lack the types of supports afforded to full-time workers. Part-time support employees are not entitled to paid sick days, paid vacation days or health benefits.

Part-time support staff have no job security, OPSEU reported, and have no control over how many hours they work or when they will work them. Generally, part-time employees are also paid less than full-time staff performing the same work.

“The part-time staff are treated like disposable workers,” said OPSEU president Warren (Smokey) Thomas.

“Once again, they have turned to us for help, because they have no protections, no benefits, no job security. It’s appalling that workers in the postsecondary education sector are subjected to such shoddy treatment.”

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