The Commerce Times

Ontario colleges press to avoid strike

TORONTO (CUP) — Ontario’s colleges are hoping to avoid a strike by taking their final offer vote straight to faculty, bypassing union negotiators entirely.

“A strike would disrupt the education of our students and is not necessary. And it would not make the union’s demands any more affordable or provide the colleges with any more money,” said Rachael Donovan, chair of the colleges’ bargaining team.

Donovan announced on Feb. 2 that the colleges have asked the Ontario Labour Relations Board to step in and allow faculty to vote on an offer previously rejected by their union.

“We are taking this step because the union declined to allow faculty to vote on the proposed collective agreement and have set a strike date,” Donovan said.

“If the majority of faculty vote against the offer then we will be facing a strike.”

Ontario’s college teachers set a Feb. 11 strike deadline on Monday. If the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, representing Ontario’s 9,000 college teachers, have not reached an agreement with Colleges Ontario by that date, the union’s leaders say they are ready to strike. The union noted that it was prepared to enter into binding arbitration if the colleges agreed to that route.

Donovan explained that both sides haven’t been able reach a settlement because of the two key issues of salary and workload.

“We remain substantively apart in both cost and structure,” she said.

The colleges’ final offer, presented on Jan. 29, reduced the length of the proposed faculty contract to three years, increased salaries by a 5.9 per cent over those three years, and removed several items that the union perceived to be problematic.

“We believe that the colleges’ final offer is a fair and reasonable offer . . . and is as far as we can go,” said Donovan.

Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents the province’s 9,000 college faculty, will be urging the members to vote down this offer.

“Our members know that the improvements we are seeking will ultimately provide a better education for the 200,000 (full-time) students in our college system,” Thomas said in a release immediately following the college’s announcement.

“That is our goal, and it should be the goal of the colleges as well.”

Donovan also announced that the colleges have rejected the union’s offer of binding arbitration.
“We do not believe that binding arbitration is the answer. We believe that the right approach is to allow faculty an opportunity to vote on the offer and not bypass them by going to a third party. Asking a third party, from our perspective, to write a contract does not change the economic circumstances of the college or its students,” she said.

The date of the vote has yet to be determined, but the colleges have asked that their request be expedited in order to avoid reaching the union’s Feb. 11 strike deadline.

Only 57 per cent of the unionized faculty voted in favour of a strike mandate on Jan. 13, which means that the new contract details proposed by the colleges at the end of January may have a chance if a final offer vote were taken straight to faculty.

However, Ted Montgomery, chair of the OPSEU bargaining team, said on Monday that be believed the slim majority wouldn’t make a potential strike less effective.

“The majority is clear enough. We don’t believe the colleges can operate in the way that they need to operate, even if the faculty cross the picket lines,” he said.

“You can’t simply slow down the teaching and graduating of students.”