DAN CEARNS The Standard
DURHAM/KAWARTHA LAKES: The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) and the College Employer Council (CEC) have come to an agreement to avoid a faculty strike at Ontario’s colleges.
With the two sides having been negotiating for months, OPSEU recently had issued a five day notice of labour action which would have seen college faculty strike on Thursday, January 9th if no agreement had been reached. On Tuesday, January 7th, OPSEU announced the two sides had “signed a Memorandum of Agreement today with significant benefit gains- particularly for their most precarious members, making up the majority of the workforce.”
“While the two sides otherwise remain at an impasse, the parties have agreed to send all outstanding items to mediation-arbitration. As a result, Ontario’s 24 public colleges will narrowly avoid a strike this term,” an OPSEU press release added.
In a statement, Graham Lloyd, the CEO of the CEC, called this decision a victory.
“We are pleased to have averted an unnecessary strike at Ontario’s 24 public Colleges,” he said. “Our goal throughout negotiations has been to recognize the hard work of academic employees and to keep students in class. To this end, CEC offered several breakthrough proposals such as enhanced benefits for all academic employees and improved access to benefits for partial-load employees. Throughout the bargaining process CEC has put students first. The threat against their learning has been averted. Both OPSEU and CEC reached an agreement to arbitrate by finding compromises on many of the outstanding demands.”
Mediation will be undertaken by arbitrator William Kaplan, and a new contract will follow at a later date.
“College students are reduced to walking dollar signs for the same reason that 75 percent of faculty are precarious, working contract-to-contract,” JP Hornick, President of OPSEU said, in his own statement. “It’s a corporate model of education that funnels student tuition away from their education and towards the ballooning salaries of ever-multiplying college administrators who will never step foot in the classroom, or vanity projects to attract investors.”
The union’s chair of the bargaining team said the right steps were taken in this negotiation.
“Faculty working conditions are student learning conditions, and with a historic strike mandate and province-wide organizing, faculty sent the clear message that we’re ready to stand up to protect both,” Ravi Ramkissoonsingh wrote.
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