It has come to the Local’s attention that Northern College, one of the colleges that Algonquin has partnered with under the recent Multi-College Collaboration Model agreement, offers “teacher-less courses”. Given the language of the agreement, and the parties’ commitment to “innovative delivery models”, everyone should take notice of the possible consequences of courses being delivered by technology rather than faculty.

This approach would have an enormous impact on securing new full-time positions, and could put existing full-time positions in jeopardy. Tracy Henderson, with support from our Divisional Executive, is in the process of reaching out to the Locals involved in the agreement to gather more information about what is happening at each college, and will be reporting back to DivEx with recommendations.

This is a significant development for our membership as “teacher-less” work forces do not make pension contributions, nor do they fund Long Term Disability programs.

We’ll be providing more information as it becomes known.

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Pat Kennedy, President

OPSEU Local 415