Our Colleges group has provided services to the Ontario colleges sector since its inception more than 30 years ago, representing individual colleges on a range of human resources matters and education issues while also working with the Colleges Com­pensation and Appointments Council (the Council) on the centralized labour and human resources matters in the sector.

With our extensive experience in the sector, we have a full understanding of both the challenges colleges face and their mandate to offer students the best education possible.

• Prevention: We help colleges proactively manage their legal issues and human resources challenges before they arise. This includes advice concerning pension and benefits matters; development of governance student and human resources policies; and the interpretation of collective agreements.
• Representation: We represent colleges in a variety of forums. This ranges from work on behalf of the Council during the collective bargaining process to the representation of individual colleges for local arbitration hearings, wrongful dismissal proceedings and internal hearings such as those involving student appeals.
• Solutions: We help colleges with a wide range of matters, such as the formation of partnerships with outside industries, the finding of cost efficiencies to extend funding effectiveness; structuring and documentation of employment and severance packages; handling of freedom of information requests and legal concerns relating to student behaviour, human rights, privacy and occupational health and safety.

The Hicks Morley advantage

The labour, employment, human resources and education legal work we do for the colleges sector is unmatched by any other firm in the country. And as Canada’s leading human resources law firm, our college clients benefit from the full depth of our firm’s expertise.

We currently act in a variety of capacities for 24 of the 25 Ontario colleges, giving us an in-depth understanding of the issues colleges face and the environment in which they operate.

We are also leaders in serving other areas of the education sector, having acted for 11 Ontario universities over the past five years, and providing services to 22 of the 31 English-language public district school boards in Ontario.

Notables

• Leadership:  On behalf of the Council, we have been involved in the bargaining of every collective agreement ever negotiated in the sector over the last 30 years. We attend Human Resource Management Steering Committee meetings, act as a resource to the Committee of Presidents when needed and liaise with government on a wide variety of issues.
• Innovation:  We have developed a comprehensive database of all of the arbitration decisions that have ever been issued in the colleges sector. We edit and summarize these cases and make them available through the Council to all individual colleges on a password-protected basis.
• Expertise:  We have worked for virtually the entire colleges sector for more than 30 years. This continuous involvement provides us with an institutional knowledge of precedents and events that at times runs far deeper than that of the institutions themselves.