24 Ontario Colleges Could Go On Strike Soon & Over 200K Students Might Be Affected
Faculty could go on strike as soon as this Friday.
Another year, another post-secondary strike in Ontario.
On March 15, college faculty members represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union announced that 16,000 of their staff could be going on strike as soon as Friday if the College Employer Council doesn't agree to settle their contract dispute with a "voluntary binding interest arbitration."
The CEC is the government-mandated bargaining group that's in charge of negotiating agreements with union staff for the 24 publicly-funded colleges in Ontario.
Here's what's been happening
In January, college faculty claimed that some reasons why the CEC's offer for a collective agreement should be rejected were because it did not address the faculty's workload issues and offered no job protection for part-time counsellors, librarians, coordinators.
OPSEU's College faculty previously shared that 62% of members who voted in contract negotiations rejected the CEC's contract offer for a collective agreement on February 18 of this year.
“Our members are fighting for the best education for students,” said JP Hornick, chair of the bargaining team for college faculty.
“We haven’t made any unreasonable demands, and everything we have asked for is easily achievable,” Hornick said in their latest release.
On Monday, March 14, the CEC stated that an independent mediator between the two negotiating parties previously said the union's demands were unreasonable.
"This is because they are demanding changes that they know colleges cannot make," officials with the CEC wrote.
"For instance, they have made demands about their workload that violate the law governing compensation. The government has confirmed the Union demands violate the law, yet the Union refuses to moderate it choosing to strike."
In the press release posted by the OPSEU on March 14, the union stated that binding interest arbitration "involves both parties’ asking a neutral arbitrator to resolve a bargaining dispute as an alternative to a strike or lockout."
Both sides would give proposals to the arbitrator, and in turn, that person will create a compromise between both parties.
College faculty wrote a letter to the various college presidents that said if they don't agree to arrange this by March 18 at 12:01 a.m, they'll be walking out of their jobs.
What this means for students
On March 4, 15 presidents from Ontario Student Associations penned a letter to the CEC and OPSEU that expressed the concerns of the over 240,000 students that attend one of these publicly-funded colleges in the province.
Among the concerns include a repeat of the 2017 strike, students caught in the middle of these negotiations and their education will suffer.
"The impact that further job action could have on students is immeasurable," they wrote.
"We insist that these negotiations not further disrupt students' lives and for assurances that they can enjoy a return to normal college routine as soon as possible."
On March 16 college faculty tweeted that the CEC has agreed to meet with them on Thursday to try to reach a negotiated settlement between the two parties.
"If real progress is being made, we are willing to extend the strike deadline."