More than 12,000 Ontario public college faculty are on strike this morning, after talks between the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) and the College Employer Council failed to produce a tentative collective agreement.
This move had led to the cancelling of classes at St. Clair College, Lambton College, Fanshawe College and the majority of the 24 others across the province.
“On October 14, we presented Council with a streamlined offer that represented what faculty consider to be the bare minimum we need to ensure quality education for students and treat contract faculty fairly,” stated JP Hornick, chair of the union bargaining team, in a press release.
“We carefully crafted a proposal that responded to Council’s concerns about costs in a fair and reasonable way. Unfortunately, Council refused to agree on even the no-cost items, such as longer contracts for contract faculty and academic freedom. This leaves us with no choice but to withdraw our services until such time as our employer is ready to negotiate seriously.”
Sonia Del Missier, chair of the bargaining team for the College Employer Council, says the strike shouldn’t have happened.
“This strike is completely unnecessary and unfair to hundreds of thousands of students,” she said in a statement.
“We should have had a deal based on our final offer. It is comparable to, or better than, recent public sector settlements with teachers, college support staff, hospital professionals, and Ontario public servants most of which were negotiated by OPSEU.
“The fastest way to resolve the strike is for the union to accept the colleges’ final offer, or, at the very least,put the colleges’ final offer forward to its members for a vote.”
College Employer Council officials say the colleges cannot accept the union’s demands that would ultimately add more than $250 million to
annual costs, eliminate thousands of contract faculty jobs, and jeopardize the quality of college programs.
Hornick says the College Employer Council is committed to a “Walmart model of education” based on reducing the role of full-time faculty and exploiting underpaid contract workers who have no job security beyond one semester.
OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas called the current impasse “regrettable” but said college faculty have the full backing of the union’s 130,000 members and their $72 million strike fund.
“Our union has a track record of getting deals done without work stoppages,” he said in a press release.
“Unfortunately, that has not happened in this case. Nonetheless, I encourage the colleges to get back to the table so we can wrap this up swiftly, for the good of students and faculty alike.”
OPSEU represents professors, instructors, counsellors, and librarians working at 24 public colleges across Ontario.
To view the College Employer Council’s final offer, click here.
