Teachers brace for a fight with the province
Worried work is being devalued and salaries will be cut
Dear Treasury Board, I teach at ------- College I would like to remind you that college teaching is part of higher education.
I have just left a meeting of a committee/working group/ course committee etc. to discuss …
This meeting was required in order to ….
At the moment, I am working on research on …
That is the message being sent by hundreds of CEGEP teachers across the province worried and dismayed about what they see as an attempt to devalue their work and cut their salaries to below that of kindergarten teachers.
Since the beginning of September, when CEGEP professors got wind that they could see their job classification lowered, so many such messages have been sent — in English and French — that the Treasury Board’s email address has in fact shut down.
For Fred Jones, the president of the Dawson College teachers’ union, the messages are a gentle but persistent means to tell the government it’s heading in the wrong direction.
“Teachers feel there’s a lack of respect for them,” Jones said Wednesday. “It’s an attack on their being to a certain extent.”
Tension between the two sides began to mount when a working group set up at the Treasury Board began to examine the question of “salary relativity,” evaluating different jobs in the public sector to see if they’re at the right place compared with other jobs.
Salaries and classifications for many jobs, including primary and secondary school teachers, had already been re-evaluated to establish pay equity between the sexes.
But given that CEGEP teaching positions were roughly divided between men and women, their jobs had not been re-examined — until now.
In June, the Treasury Board decided that it would include in its calculations only the time spent by college teachers preparing courses, teaching and correcting, but not taking part in additional research or participating in committees, or any of the other extra duties teachers may have as they guide students from high school into university or jobs.
Plus, given that they worked with young adults — and not troublesome tots or teenagers — their work was deemed to require less energy.
The upshot was that CEGEP teachers, who currently are on the same pay scale as elementary and high school teachers, would see their salaries reduced by about five per cent, or three to four weeks of salary per year, Jones said. Right now, the pay ceiling for high school teachers and CEGEP teachers without a master’s degree is $75,357.
At the same time, the Treasury Board decided it would no longer allow for increased salaries for CEGEP teachers based on having a master’s degree or PhD. A CEGEP teacher with a PhD can earn up to $79,484 this academic year.
Jones said that was perhaps the worst insult.
“Studying and doing a master’s or PhD requires a lot of work and dedication, and teachers have put years and now she isn’t sure she can pay for her apartment.”
The Quebec minister responsible for government administration, Stéphane Bédard, who is also chair of the Treasury Board, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But two weeks ago he insisted salaries for CEGEP teachers would not be cut.
“Like the great majority
“Teachers feel there’s a lack of respect for them. It’s an attack on their being
to a certain extent.”
FRED JONES, PRESIDENT, DAWSON COLLEGE TEACHERS’ UNION
of their life into it to understand a subject and explore it, and they feel this is being ignored.”
Jones said teachers are in shock or disbelief, and a number of them have come to him in tears.
“One was a single parent just about to finish her PhD — she went through such an effort to get it and was counting on the increase in salary of public-sector workers, CEGEP teachers have a collective agreement in their pocket that is valid until March 31, 2015. So there is no question the government will reduce their salaries,” Bédard declared.
No one knows what will happen after March 2015, however.
Mario Beauchemin, the president of the Fédération des enseignantes et enseignants de CEGEP, which represents 14 CEGEP teachers’ unions across Quebec, said he has since spoken to Bédard over the phone, and was assured that salaries would not be reduced before, during or after the ongoing Treasury Board discussions on the subject, the next one being held in mid-October.
“Salaries have never been reduced in any job category,” Beauchemin said, “and it won’t start with CEGEP teachers. We already have difficulties finding candidates for fields like nursing and radio-oncology. Things will only get worse if salaries go down on top of it and master’s and PhDs are not recognized.”
Beauchemin added that the government had underestimated the time spent by teachers preparing courses, and other realities of the 21st century — like the fact the number of students with disabilities going to CEGEP has increased by 400 per cent in the past few years.
Micheline Thibodeau, vice-president of the Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec, which represents 33,000 teachers in 46 CEGEPs, said she was holding her tongue to see how the talks with the Treasury Board progress.
“We’re still talking with Board — that’s why we’re optimistic,” Thibodeau said. “That doesn’t mean we’ll find a solution, but we’re still talking and that’s a good sign.”
Jones believes, however, that the Treasury Board may just freeze CEGEP teachers’ salaries, until the job category below their pay scale catches up.
“The minister said of course they’re not talking about salary cuts, which is true. But they’re talking about a salary freeze. Sometimes the language can fool you.”