Another heat wave is upon folks, but hopefully you're enjoying this summer to the hilt, I know I am.

A couple of things are critically important relating to the fall start up. Those are Offence Declaration sign offs and FOBs.

You need to go into your Payroll Portal area and check off your Declaration for the upcoming school year.  It is absolutely imperative that you do it before September 6th. This also applies for personalized FOBs that have to be in your hands before school starts. Call IT at Ext 11777 is any difficulties persist.

Again, stay cool and enjoy sleeping in!

Jeff Parton

Well fellow supply teachers, summer is here finally and no doubt a needed rest-bit. Just a few things to finish off the year.

Make sure you sign off on your Offense Declaration. This has to be done before school start up in the fall and can be found under the Payroll Portal area of the Board's staff web site.

For EI applications; here are the codes from HR. 
​For summertime  applications use # 3511012016201606 (effective from June 17 to July 23), December applications: 3511012016201612 (good for December 16 through January 15), and March Break applications:  3511012017201703 (March 10 – April 2).

If you have not received your Board FOB yet get in touch with them immediately to make sure it gets to you by September 1st (IT: 11777).

Happy Canada Day and do have a good summer above all else.

Our Annual General Meeting was held last week (May 19) and we had our 2nd highest turnout sitting at 44 members. There were no huge changes regarding the Executive.  Paul Cudney has stepped out of the 2nd VP role for a bit of a breather and in for him, through an election, is former voting Exec member Ty Walkland. Also on board for next year is Matt Boyd as our Communications & Political Action Committee Rep (CPAC).

It seemed evident at the AGM that a lot of you are unclear with our contract and specifically the Decline Rule, Commitment day language, and our Emergency duty sheet. I will incorporate those detailed explanations in the Fall newsletter.  

The end of the year is in sight and as a result the EI codes will appear shortly in our Year End newsletter.

It is a busy time of year in all avenues of education and unionism, so just keeping thinking summer and it will be here sooner than you think.

We hope to see as many members as possible out to our AGM this year on Thursday May 19, 2016. If you have a resolution that you would like to have presented at the AGM this year, please be aware that all on-time resolutions must be submitted to the union office by April 22. This year's AGM will be hosted, like last year, at the district office located at Unit 6, 51 King Street Barrie. We will go and enjoy a nice dinner out after the meeting with all who attend. If you have any questions about the meeting or procedures that will occur, please don't hesitate to contact President, Jeff Parton at [email protected]. Please scroll to the bottom of this page for a map detailing directions to the union office.

​Chris Petersen

Been awhile since we've posted a Blog folks, so thought I'd better update you on a few things:

Unfortunately daily casual work is down about -10% compared to last year at this time, a significant amount of work has been lost and with it, remuneration. The good news is April & May are the busiest months of the year for supply teaching.  Comparatively, LTO jobs are up +11% over the same time frame, so at least that is some good news. 

During the month of March we had our largest amount of people either in trouble, stressed, grieved, inves-tigated, etc. A total of 19 incidents/concerns cropped up and usually that happens over a period of a year not in a one month period. There are several reasons for it, too numerous to mention here, but we're hoping that number abates for the rest of the year.

Our AGM is coming up May 19 and related to that are resolutions. If you want a resolution put forward to be on time, please get it to me ([email protected]) or Chris Petersen ([email protected]) by April 22nd. 

AMPA, our Union's AGM took place in March and was well attended with loads of resolutions passed by the approximately 550 members.

Don't forget to get your FOB info into the Board; see blog below if you need details.  

Hopefully work will pick up in the following spring months, I'm sure it will.

​Jeff Parton

Good morning,

As was just sent out in a mass email, here is a reminder to send your pictures in (using your board email) so a FOB may be issued for you to gain access into SCDSB schools on days when you get a call. See the message from the board below:

Occasional Supply staff (this process does not apply to casual Operations/ custodial staff) are currently being issued security identification badges/fobs (ID Badges). These will be used for identification purposes and also building access based on the employee's assigned jobs in SCARRI. An automated process will grant access to schools based on accepted SCARRI job assignments on the day of the job.

To prepare for the process of printing each employee's ID badge we are asking you to send in an appropriate photo of yourself to [email protected] from your own SCDSB email account. Using a SCDSB email account is necessary to allow us to verify your identity before printing the ID badge. When sending the photo by email the following information must be included:

1. Send email to: [email protected]  from your scdsb.on.ca email address
2. Subject of email: Your Name - Occasional Employee ID Badge Photo
3. Attach your photo to the email. Photo should clearly show your entire face.
4. In the email message body include: 
   a. Your Full Name 
   b. Your Employee ID (which is the same as your SCARRI Access ID) 
   c. The name of a SCDSB school that you often visit.  This is where your completed card will be delivered for you to pick up. If you would rather pickup your ID badge at the Education Centre in Midhurst, please indicate this instead of a school.

For further details, review the iOS fob photo instructions.

Note, that the ID badges will not be active when delivered to the school and you receive them. You will need to login to the SCDSB staff website to activate your ID badge before it will work for building access. Instructions for activation of the ID badge are located on the staff website.

The process of printing the ID badges will start in January 2016.  When your badge is ready to be picked up you will be notified with an email to your SCDSB email account. When picking up your badge you will be required to show identification.  You will also need to sign for the badge when you receive it.

You may also visit the education centre between Monday, February 8 and Friday, February 19 to have your photo taken if you wish. Reception staff (usually Lynn Timms) at the front desk will take your photo and send it directly to [email protected] for you. Be prepared to provide identification to staff to verify your identity. Your photo will be queued up for processing and your location for pick up will need to be documented.

If you have any questions please email [email protected]. 

With respect to our recently signed Collective Agreement is a concern several of you have voiced over the last few weeks. That concern is over the change from 20 commitment days per year back to the former 10 days per semester to stay on the Supply List (SCARRI). Simply put, because of the fact the Contract was signed almost half way into the school year one has the entire year to do the total of the cumulative 20 days for commitment purposes.
Bottom line, don't fret if you only have 7 or 8 days in the first semester.

The following is an analysis of our recently ratified Contract:  


Current OTBU Collective Agreement “Precis”

 

As you are all aware of, we ratified our Collective Agreement back on December 16.  Below are the most relevant Articles that pertain to you as a Supply Teacher/LTO. The areas that are in brackets and italicised are my comments pertaining to the Article’s actual intent or understanding.  The contract should be up on our web site now for complete perusal.  If there are still explanations needed please email me at my OSSTF email address: [email protected] or call 705-428-3537.

 

Part A - Central Agreement:

·       The Contract expires on August 31st of 2017

·       Sick leave credit is 5.5 days per full semester with a 60 day short term disability leave pegged at 90% of salary.

·       There will be an exploratory Regulation 274 committee made up of Government and OSSTF officials with an end date of March 31. After that they will present their combined findings to the Bargaining agents.

 

Part B - Local Agreement:

·       (All strips that the Board had insisted upon were ultimately withdrawn).

·       Several housekeeping Articles were cleaned up; mostly definitions, redundant items, and out dated articles deleted.

·       Article 12.02 (c): Persons repeatedly not making themselves unavailable could be taken off SCARRI.

·       Article 12.03 (a):  Commitment days are now back to having to do 10 each semester for a total of 20 for the full school year.  It is not 20 per year as in the last contract. (This was a point the Board did not want to back down on whatsoever).

·       Article 12.03 (g):  There is now much tighter language on when applying for leaves.  Leaves commencing in September have to be in to the Board office by June 1 of the previous semester. Leave applications have to be in to the Board in January for Semester II leaves. (there was lots of abuse regarding leaves in the past)

·        Article 14.02 (a):  Now if daily supply assignments are cancelled due to weather and, therefore, resultant bus cancellations, you should monitor media outlets or the Board’s web site to find that information out. The Board will attempt to call out but if it is in the media, news etc. the job is deemed cancelled if buses are not running.

·        Article 15.05 (a):  Con Ed teachers will now get a credit of 1:1 for any previous teaching experience to be paid retroactively back to Sept 1/2015. (It used to be what we considered punitive at a ratio of 2:1). So if one has 5 years teaching experience you will be paid at Grid level 5 starting Semester 1.  (this is a big win for us and we have been fighting for years to change this unfair situation)

·        Article 15.07 (a):  Pay will be a lump sum bonus payment of 1% for 2015/16, a 1% increase as of September 2016, and a .5% increase as of February 1, 2017. (Totally it is an increase of 2.5%. The bonus tied to this year’s pay will simply be calculated on how much you have made gross throughout this year and will be paid out sometime this summer - 2016)

·        Article 15.09 (a) [i]:  With regards to daily pay, no one shall get paid more than 1.17 of a day’s pay. As an example; if one has a 2/3’s LTO (.667), you can work a ½ (.5) day of supply to = 1.17. (This also was an insistence by the Board’s negotiation’s team. Initially they demanded a pay cap of only 1.0 but we pushed and got it to 1.17).

·        Article 15.10 (a): Cancellation time has increased to 75 minutes from the previous 60 minutes. If a job is cancelled during that time frame you can still report to the school in question and be given a different assignment for the day or ½ day. (This is an increase of 15 minutes in this article, another win for us).

·        Article 15.14: For the purposes of reporting EI hours, each day is deemed as being 8 hours in length.

·        Article 19:  The Board has given us a $2,000 stipend for Professional Development for all members. (This is the first time the Board has given us PD monies).

Well, we can celebrate Christmas with a gift to you; in the form of a ratified new local Collective Agreement. 
One week ago today, 26 OT members endorsed the deal with a 96 percentile.  It was a low turnout but it is a crazy time of the year for sure for everyone.

In the new year we will highlight and explain some of the new language within it.  More importantly, we will endeavour to clarify how it impacts you as an Occasional teacher.

In the meantime, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a 2016 full of all kinds of jobs, be it casual or LTO.

jeff parton

Don't forget to attend our Ratification vote meeting scheduled for Wednesday Dec. 16.
It will be held at our office @ 51 King Street - Barrie ON. (Unit 6) with a start time of 4:30 pm.
Obviously only OT members of OSSTF D 17 will be allowed to vote.

If you want to peruse the deal in principle you can pick up a copy at that same address anytime.

See you all there!

jeff p