David Bateman. Staff Reporter, Published on Tue May 12 2015
Around 25 members of teaching and administrative staff at the school, at 55 York St., commenced strike action on Monday after contract negotiations with management fell apart.
The education plans of more than 300 English as a second language students are up in the air following a job security dispute at the Toronto branch of the Kaplan International teaching school.
Around 25 members of the teaching and administrative staff at Kaplan Toronto, based at 55 York St., commenced strike action Monday after contract negotiations with management fell apart. Kaplan uses a clause to lay off workers based on an internal “performance matrix.”
The teachers, members of Unifor Local 40 union, claim that the “matrix” is used randomly and unpredictably to justify the firing of experienced and highly skilled teachers, potentially in favour of shorter-term contract workers with similar student survey results. The concern is that permanent work is slowly being converted to precarious work by the selective process.
Kaplan’s performance evaluation system scores teachers on criteria including student survey results, the degrees that teachers hold and the variety of courses taught.
“People with 10 to 15 years of experience are being laid off, instead of people who were hired in the last year,” English language arts (ELA) teacher and test preparation instructor Brad Bartholomew, 45, said.
“Our employers recognize they have full rights to use progressive discipline in line with performance evaluation. They say this restricts them too much. That’s completely untrue, there’s no reason why they can’t manage us based on performance. In fact, we want to be managed on performance. We just don’t want it to be the sole basis for arbitrary dismissal.
“We want to be better teachers and deliver quality classes to students. But you could be a good performer in the bottom third of teachers and be arbitrarily laid off.
Kaplan International operates 44 language schools across several countries. Fees for students at the school range from $275 to $422 per week. The school insists that their performance evaluation system is not arbitrary and staffing levels were dependent on the number of students being taught at a particular time.
“At Kaplan, we value and respect our teachers and the role they play in our schools. That is why we pay our teachers the highest hourly rate in the sector for proprietary ESL teachers in Toronto, and provide a good benefits package,” said Melissa Mack, chief communications officer at Kaplan.
“We were disappointed [by the strike], as there was only a single issue remaining. To clarify, at issue is whether performance can be one of the factors considered during layoffs, and we have offered to make seniority the primary consideration. Our current offer suggests seniority will be considered first, unless a performance improvement plan has been put in place to rectify a serious performance issue. It's important that we have the ability to provide our students with the highest quality teachers.”
Philip Soffe, 47, has been teaching at the Toronto branch for 12 years. The Aurora native is worried about what constitutes poor performance.
“It’s concerning given that we’ve been credited for having the best teaching staff for a school our size from Kaplan in the past year,” Soffe said. “Yet, we may just find we are suddenly laid off. How high do our scores have to be? Where is the bar? At the moment, the base level of satisfaction for good performance is 90 per cent,” Soffe said.
Problems initially arose after a collective agreement expired on June 30, 2014. At that time, a clause was inserted saying that seniority would govern the order of layoffs when the employer determines skill, abilities and performance qualifications are equal.
However, Unifor say Kaplan are now using the clause to dismiss long-serving employees with high approval ratings. Six members of staff have been dismissed in the past 12 to 18 months. The union claims that a 0.1 per cent difference in performance evaluation scores could cause a junior employee to be retained over a senior member of staff with more than 10 years experience.
“The unfortunate thing is it’s affecting about 350 students,” Bartholomew continued. “For the most part, they are adults from countries including Saudi Arabia, Korea, Venezuela, Spain and France.
“It’s really unfortunate it has come to this point because students often plan their lessons with us to improve their careers. It is affecting them but for the most part they are in support of us.
Bartholomew, originally from Kitchener, has been teaching at the school for five years. “They seem to be unwilling to lay off newer hires,” he said. “Seniority is supposed to be a factor but they are adamant against using it.”
Classes at Kaplan Toronto are continuing with substitute teachers that the company insists, “have the same level of qualifications as those in the bargaining unit.” Striking members of staff suggested those supplemental teachers were of a lower standard.
Unifor officials say the strike will continue until the issue is resolved.
