The fate of U of T’s sessional teachers become a little more clear this week as the group voted in favour of joining local union CUPE 3902, pending final vote counts.

Thursday was the final day of hearings with the Labour Relations Board, a process that has been going on throughout December. There are still votes to be counted, and the finer points have yet to be decided on, but there has already been a majority vote in favour of unionization and the sessional teachers have been given an interim certificate because of the apparent majority.

102 of the 180 ballots cast have already been counted, leaving them with 56 per cent in favour of unionization.

Sessional teachers are generally defined as non-students teaching classes on a short-term basis, working on a contract of 12 months or less.

CUPE representative Mikael Swayze says that he has every expectation that the labour board will grant a final certificate in a few weeks. The certificate would make the sessionals the second part of CUPE 3902, the branch that represents teaching assistants and graduates.

Up until now, many sessional teachers have felt that their needs have not been adequately met. Swayze claims that the Faculty Association at U of T is not sufficient for the task of making sure that sessionals get a fair deal because they are not a union and “they have no collective agreement.”

In reference to the Faculty Association encouraging its members to vote “no” back in October, Swayze called it a “farce” that the group would take such a stance, and said that it was “strange for them to take the same position as the employer,” adding “they are consigning those people to a non-union state.”

George Luste, president of the Faculty Association, was concerned with the results of the vote, being that the sessionals will “do better in the long term if they are under the same tent as the faculty.” He pointed out that sessionals from Queen’s University are trying to “get in with the faculty.”

Although he holds the opinion that the teachers are better undivided, Luste continually stressed that he wanted what was best for the sessional teachers, whatever that might be. Luste is unsure about the way that the university will be affected by unionization, but said there had not been a big change since grads and TAs joined CUPE. He also has an issue with the way that the vote was carried out. “You have a problem with the democratic process…when the vote was taken, there was one definition of sessional, and then it was changed.”

The remaining discussion on the issue hinges around the question of who is to be included in the classification of sessional and who is to be in the union. Some, like the Faculty Association, believe that those who teach more than one course should not be included, while others believe that there should be a wider definition.