Hamill College was founded in the 1920s. It is a postsecondary institution which offers undergraduate and graduate degrees, academic upgrading programs, and diploma and certifi cate career development programs.

Although it is operated by a non-governmental organization, it receives government funding to support its operations, and the degrees and other credentials it awards are accredited by the government.

Hamill has four academic faculties (arts and science, education, professional and continuing education, and graduate studies). The government considers it a “teaching-intensive institution,” and as such its main focus is on undergraduate education. However, it offers two master’s degree programs and two post-degree certificate programs.

The Hamill College Teachers Association was formed in the early 2000s, and meets the definition of a trade union in the provincial labour relations legislation. However, it is registered as an organization under the provincial Societies Act. Its members are all full-time permanent faculty members, laboratory teachers, laboratory technicians, professional librarians, and fi eld placement coordinators. Its members do not include administrators or deans.

All Hamill employees have individual contracts of employment. Hamill deducts Teachers Association membership dues from all Association members’ pay, and remits those dues to the Association.

The Association has fi led an application to be the bargaining agent for a proposed bargaining unit that matches the composition of its membership. At the time the application was fi led, there were 62 employees in the proposed bargaining unit: 51 faculty members, five lab instructors, two librarians, two laboratory technicians, and two field placement coordinators. More than 40% of the members of the proposed bargaining unit indicated their support for the association as their bargaining agent.

Every semester, Hamill also temporarily employs a number of sessional and adjunct faculty members.

In the last academic year, a total of 83 course sections were taught by sessional instructors. There are also nine instructors who have been appointed as adjunct faculty members. The Association is not seeking to represent those individuals, and it is not seeking to represent deans or administrators. Hamill agrees that deans and administrators are managers and should not be included in a bargaining unit.

Hamill also has a “visiting instructor” category for faculty members, but there were no appointments in this category at the time the application was made.

Hamill has several documents containing defi nitions of “faculty” and “staff.” The Faculty Handbook (which contains policies, regulations, and guidelines) and the Hamill Guidebook (which is a summary document given to all instructors at their orientation) define “faculty” as probationary and permanent full-time professors. However, according to the Guidebook, the institution uses the term “faculty” informally to refer to all staff with instructional responsibilities. The Handbook for Administrative Officers refers to laboratory instructors, laboratory technicians, librarians, and fi eld placement coordinators as “staff officers”. The Guidebook identifies the institution’s “academic staff” as all the positions in the proposed bargaining unit.

Each academic faculty at Hamill has a monthly council meeting, which permanent faculty members are required to attend. Only permanent faculty members and administrators who also have appointments as faculty are permitted to vote on motions at these meetings. Sessional instructors and staff officers are welcome to attend these meetings, but they have no voting rights. Permanent faculty members are also expected to attend orientations, retreats, graduation ceremonies, division meetings, and department meetings. Other instructors are invited but not required to attend these events.

Permanent faculty members also participate in university-wide standing committees, policy development committees, and other administrative committees. The Faculty Handbook states that only permanent faculty members can be appointed as faculty representatives to these committees, and that only permanent faculty members can vote in elections for these faculty representatives.

There are different recruitment and hiring procedures for permanent faculty members and for sessional faculty. 

Hamill’s preference is to use permanent faculty members for teaching whenever possible. Sessional instructors teaching more than 60% of a full course load may be employed for a maximum of three years, unless an exception is made by the department’s dean and is ratifi ed by a university-wide committee. At the time the application was made, there were nine sessional instructors who had been granted this exception and who had worked at Hamill for between 10 and 25 years.

There are three different ranks for permanent faculty members (assistant professor, associate professor, and professor); these are awarded by the recommendation of a university-wide committee to the President and the Board of Governors. There are no ranks for sessional instructors or for staff officers.

The Union’s Position 

The Hamill College Teachers Association argues that its proposed bargaining unit, or one reasonably similar to it, is appropriate for collective bargaining.

The Employer’s Position

Hamill College argues that the bargaining unit should not include librarians, laboratory technicians, or field placement officers. It proposes a bargaining unit containing permanent faculty members, laboratory instructors, adjunct professors, and sessional instructors.