Toronto Substitute Teachers Action Caucus Home | our story | legal dispute |upcoming events | newsletters | questions for the OTBU Exec | Collective Bargaining | A call for help is met with Cold Indifference (Proof of the narrow agenda and attitute of our New Executive to its Members) On Monday November 1st 2004, the call-out system went down and until late morning on Tuesday November 2nd, a great number of dailies were unable to obtain jobs or log into their job mailboxes. One of our members (concerned because every day of pay is essential to being able to pay her bills as teaching is her only source of income), called our president, Jennifer Mills at home at approx 7:10 AM on November 2nd. The primary goal of the call was to find out if others were also having problems logging onto the system (during off call-out hours), and if others were able to secure jobs for the day. Jennifer's response was cold and mildly irritated that she was being bothered about this. She told the caller that since she was working that day, that this was none of her concern, and she did not care to know any details of what the situation might be. She suggested the caller phone the help desk after 9:30 AM (the time, according to Jennifer, that it opened) and ask them then. Not only would calling at that time have prevented her from working that day, she was shocked that the president of the Occasional teachers' Union didn't even know when the hours of operation of the help desk were!!!!! It is common knowlege that the helpdesk takes calls from 7:30AM to 4:30PM Monday to Friday. She was shocked at the level of indifference to her problem (especially after reading the official newsletter where Jennifer claims her caucus is there to help and serve the needs of every member!!!). At 8:00 AM she was still unable to access the system or the helpdesk, and really started to panic about being able to secure any job for the day. Knowing no other substitute teachers, and having no other contact info to call for help/support, She called Jennifer again, and was met with continued disinterest in her problem and refusal to help her solve it. It's hard to wonder if Jennifer would have been so indifferent about the issue if it had been something that affected her personally or her friends! Isn't the point of having a union and a union exective to have people to call for help who will be there for you to assist you? What exactly is she being paid to do if not this?   Contact Us: Hotline: 416 - 588 - 9090 | email: Substitute Teachers' Action Caucus