A move by OPSEU to organize nine thousand part-time Teachers at Community colleges in Ontario is stalled.
OPSEU is seeking to represent the 56 workers at Georgian College in Owen Sound and Barrie, along with the thousands of workers at 23 other Community colleges in Ontario.
The certification vote began in January and wrapped up on February 5th.
However, OPSEU spokesperson Roger Couvrette tells Bayshore Broadcasting news, the College are now blocking the certification process.
Couvrette says the Community colleges dispute the union claim, that they have enough support to hold a certification vote.
Now, the battle is before the Ontario Labour relations board.
OPSEU and the Colleges will meet again with the Labour board June 12th, to try and settle the dispute.
Couvrette says they had some 50% of the part time teachers sign cards seeking certification, so he is confident the union will win the right to negotiate for the teachers.
He says Colleges have used part-timers as a cheap source of employment and it must end.
Couvrette says they are only paid for their classroom time and not any prep work, so their 40 dollars an hour works out to be more like 10 dollars an hour.
Full time College teachers earn between 50 and 90 thousand dollars. They are already represented by OPSEU.
Couvrette adds part time teachers also have no benefits, no vacation, no job security and no grievance process.