All Posts Tagged With: "Ontario College Strike"
The 10 biggest stories in Canadian higher education
The (surprisingly) most-read stories of 2011
Photo by Kelly Finnamore on Flickr
Each year, we offer Maclean’s On Campus readers a look back at the Top 10 most-read higher education news stories of the year. There were two big themes in 2011. First, the many scandals over universities’ reputations, from Alberta to Queen’s to St. FX. Second, uncertainty about the job market for grads.
1. Time for this year’s edition of X-ring Idol
Our blogging English professor, Todd Pettigrew, dared to compare the obsession of St. Francis Xavier students with their beloved X-ring to Gollum’s unhealthy quest for the precious. We knew St. FX students would defend their tradition vociferously—and they did, with more than 250 comments over three days. Most were from alumni and students who thought Pettigrew missed the point. They argued that the ring symbolizes their hard work and the family-like bond they instantly glean whenever a fellow X-grad catches a glimpse of their band. Then again, dozens of readers agreed with Pettigrew—some even suggested the flood of emotional reactions reinforced his point.
Continue reading The 10 biggest stories in Canadian higher education
Ontario College strike creates problems at some schools
Long lines and traffic jams from Toronto to Timmins
Picketers at George Brown College, by Josh Dehaas
There are three-hour waits in line to register for courses at George Brown College in Toronto, reports the Toronto Star.
In Belleville, picketers at Loyalist College created a monster traffic jam that caused students and teachers to be late for class, reports the Intelligencer. The traffic jam also hindered regular citizens. One mother told the paper that the traffic jam made her four-year-old daughter more than an hour late for her first day of kindergarten.
There were also long lines of cars trying to enter Northern College yesterday, reports the Timmins Times and traffic woes plagued Mohawk College in Hamilton too, writes the The Spectator.
A Seneca College, a student told the Toronto Star that his orientation was cancelled.
The disruptions are all due to picket lines created by 8,000 Ontario college support staff who went on strike at 24 schools on Sept. 1. The The Ontario Public Service Employees Union members work in bookstores, registration, financial aid offices, IT, janitorial, maintenance and more.
Warren “Smokey” Thomas, OPSEU President, told Maclean’s On Campus on Thursday that workers are striking to protect full-time jobs, because the colleges want to add more part-time employees. “I tell parents and students that we’re fighting for their futures,” he said.
The union has also asked for wage increases. Under the expiring collective agreement, employees who have worked full-time for more than one year are paid between $18.27 and $44.91 per hour. The College Employer Council’s last offer on August 31st included a 4.75 per cent wage increase, paid over three years, which would have put the average salary at just over $59,000.
Although students have faced delays and headaches at some schools, students at Fanshawe College in London told the London Free Press that there were no serious delays getting to campus on Tuesday. At Georgian College in Barrie, Algonquin College in Ottawa and St. Lawrence College in Brockville, local media also reported only minor delays on the first day of class.
What remains unclear is whether government loans will reach students later than usual. Chris Whitaker, president of St. Lawrence College, told The Canadian Press that managers at his school are working to get students’ Ontario Student Assistance Program loans distributed on time. But at Fleming College in Peterborough, all student loan appointments were cancelled this week.
College strike officially averted
OPSEU says ‘fear’ was the primary motivator for faculty to accept the college’s final offer
The Ontario college semester is no longer under threat after official results confirm that faculty have accepted management’s final offer. The Ontario Labour Relations Board announced Wednesday that just over 51 per cent of faculty voted Feb 10 to accept the proposal from the College Compensation and Appointments Board. The deal will serve as the collective agreement for the next three years.
Negotiations initially broke down in November and tensions remained high as nearly 500,000 students were left uncertain if they would be able to complete the winter semester. The drama culminated after faculty voted to give the union bargaining team a strike mandate on Jan 13. In late January, management produced its final offer which was rejected by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, who declined to bring the offer to members for a vote.
OPSEU then imposed a strike deadline, arguing that it would encourage the college’s to make further concessions. The colleges answered by bringing their final offer directly to faculty themselves, under the auspices of the Labour B0ard. Due to the narrow margin of the vote, and a disproportionate number of yet to be counted mail-in ballots, there was some uncertainty as to whether faculty had actually accepted the offer. Those uncertainties have now been laid to rest.
Rachel Donovan, chair of the college’s bargaining team expressed relief at the official results, “We will now have a collective agreement in place and we have avoided a strike. This result is good news for our students, our faculty and our communities.”
OPSEU, however, does not have a rosy view of the results and says it is “fear” of a strike, instilled by management, that led faculty to vote in favour of the offer. “We did not want a labour disruption, and had a plan to avoid one, but the employer took the stance with our members that it was either accept the offer or be forced out on strike,” said Ted Montgomery, chair of the union bargaining team.
Update: college strike averted . . . maybe
Faculty vote 51.25% in favour of the colleges’ final offer.
College faculty at Ontario’s 24 community colleges have voted narrowly to accept management’s final offer, with 51.25 per cent casting a ballot in favour of the deal. However, the results could change after the Ontario Labour Relations Board conducts an official count, including mail-in ballots.
For more coverage of this story, please click here
Rachel Donovan, chair of the college’s bargaining team, says the colleges are happy with the results, but nerves remain high due to the narrow margin of the vote. “We’re really pleased that so many faculty saw this offer as fair and reasonable, and one that they could accept,” she said. “Obviously we hope that the official results will be available soon.”
Ted Montgomery, chair of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union bargaining team, says the result is disappointing. “First of all we’re disappointed because it wasn’t a clear rejection vote, and it wasn’t a clear vote either way,” he said. “I think its just about the worst possible result.”
In a January vote, only 57 per cent of faculty voted to give OPSEU a strike mandate.
When asked if management would be willing to make any concessions if a recount shows that faculty actually rejected the offer, Donovan reiterated the college’s position that the proposal was a final one. “Well our position is that that was our final [offer] and we have given everything we have given . . . so it will be up to the union.”
Although Montgomery says he doesn’t “necessarily” think the recount will change the results, but if the vote does swing the other way, he indicated the colleges would have to move closer to OPSEU’s position. “If this offer is rejected, they’re going to have a hard time saying its they’re final offer,” he said.
According to Montgomery, there was only a difference of 200 votes, with at least 300 ballots still to be counted.
The college’s brought the offer directly to faculty after the OPSEU bargaining team rejected the deal. The union had issued a strike deadline of Feb 17. For now both sides are awaiting official counts from the labour board. As many as 500,000 students would affected by a strike.
Strike vote today
College faculty considering management’s final offer.
For the second time in just under a month, faculty at Ontario’s 24 community colleges are going to the polls. This time the question is whether or not to accept the College Appointment and Compensation Board’s final offer. Accepting the offer would most likely avert a strike. After the bargaining team for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union rejected management’s proposal, and refused to bring it to members for ratification, the college’s arranged a vote under the auspices of the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
For more on this story, please click here.
OPSEU continues to advise members to vote “no” to the offer, arguing that a better deal can reached at the bargaining table. The union has given a Feb 17 strike deadline. In a release issued Tuesday, Ted Montgomery, chair of of the union’s bargaining team said “The offer from the employer is not acceptable.” He added, “However, we are emphatic that a settlement can be reached at the negotiating table without any work stoppage that will affect the students’ year.”
College management says that a rejection of their proposal will most certainly mean a strike. In a statement released Monday, the college’s emphasized that this is their final offer. “If the majority of faculty rejects the offer, there will be a strike because this is the colleges’ final offer,” the statement read.
On Jan 13, faculty voted narrowly to give the union bargaining team a strike mandate.
A strike would affect 500,000 students.
Results of the vote are expected shortly after 9:00pm. Watch Maclean’s On Campus for full coverage including results and reactions from the college sector.
Stop the strike!
An Ontario college professor urges his colleagues to accept management’s final offer, and avoid a strike.
In my tenure as a professor in the School of Business at St. Lawrence College, I have been through three strikes. I have noticed a pattern occurring in the bargaining between the union and management: Negotiations fail. The union requests and gets a strike mandate. Management doesn’t budge. Faculty walk the picket line. Management still doesn’t budge. We are ordered back to work with legislation and negotiations go to binding arbitration. This could have been done in the first place without all the frustrations of a strike.
Related: For more coverage of this story, please see here.
Myself and a core group of professors who are advocating against a strike, proposed this to the union bargaining team before the strike vote of January 13. We were told binding arbitration was removed from the College Collective Bargaining Act (CCBA) of 2008. It is interesting that the union is now taking the position that negotiations should go to binding arbitration.
The real frustration of a strike is the fact that there is a third party affected. In normal labour disputes there are two parties; employees willing to sacrifice income and employers willing to sacrifice sales or market share. The challenge is to see which side can hold out the longest to obtain their desired results.
In our situation there is a third party: the students who have paid in advance for services. When there is a strike, to the students it seems that it’s the faculty who are withholding those services. The colleges have the money, they are innocent. The students are being denied the services, they are the victims; it is the faculty that are considered to be the guilty party. Once the strike is over, it is faculty that have to demand heavier work loads on students to catch up, again, the bad guys.
I and many other teachers across the system are fed up with this process. According to union news releases 15 out of 16 negotiations have had to go to a strike vote to get results and three actually resulted in work stoppages. The process has to change!
Apparently the two major issues still outstanding are academic freedom and workload formulas. Unlike universities that are developing abstract thinkers, the college system was created to develop Ontario’s workforce. Our programs are designed to meet other regulatory bodies’ requirements. Nurses must pass provincial examinations; tradesmen must meet provincial standards. Accountants must meet self-guiding standards established by Certified General Accountants. Credits in courses obtained in one college usually can be transferred to other programs in other colleges because the curriculum must meet provincial guidelines. The union is suggesting that teachers need complete academic freedom to create curriculum as they wish. Nice idea but not practical.
The reality is that I develop course outlines, choose textbooks, establish evaluation tools and deliver in a variety of ways including guest speakers and field trips. There’s no doubt in my mind that I have plenty of academic freedom.
On the issue of workload, the union will tell you it is about quality of education. First, it is management, and not the union that is held accountable for quality. The key performance indicators (KPI) are the accepted measure of quality for Ontario’s Colleges. They measure satisfaction levels of current students, graduates and the employers of our graduates. If a mere adjustment to an evaluation factor on a standardized workload formula (SWF) could make an improvement across the province on quality then all colleges would be tied for first when the results of the KPIs are announced!
The SWF is a guideline to establish fair workloads for faculty. It is not a science. No two weeks are the same. I might have two or three weeks with a lot of preparation and delivery with little evaluation and another week exactly the opposite.
What seems to be a sticking point for the union is that management wants some more flexibility to the SWF. It’s complicated but what management is saying is that no alteration to an individual faculty member’s SWF would take place unless there was agreement between the faculty member, the union and management. Can’t say that this will somehow have a negative impact on the individual faculty member.
The college bargaining team presented an offer and the union bargaining team rejected it. The proposal includes an increase to the original salary offer and reduces the term from four years to three. The reduction of the term of the contract was a major concession by the colleges. We have yet to see major concessions from the union side. The Forty-three per cent of faculty who voted against a strike last month, were prepared to accept the terms and conditions that management put in place on November 18th.
The union refused to bring the offer to faculty. However the College Collective Bargaining Act of 2008 allows management to present its offer directly to faculty. The vote is to take place on Wednesday.
Faculty must accept this offer or we will be on strike. Management has nothing to lose. They will not accept binding arbitration. They have exercised every new option under the CCBA 2008. First, they imposed new terms and conditions. Second, they applied to the Labour Council to present their final offer, and third, they will remain open during a strike and allow faculty to work. This will destroy the union!
Bill Tennant is a professor in the School of Business at the Kingston campus of St. Lawrence College. He runs a website devoted to persuading his colleagues to avoid a strike at stopthestrike.net.
When negotiations break down
College faculty union braces for vote on final offer before strike deadline
With the strike deadline pushed back to Feb. 17 from Feb. 11, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union says they are looking for binding arbitration in negotiations with Ontario’s colleges that broke down in December. Faculty gave the union strike mandate in a Jan 13 vote.
The union, which represents 9,00 0 faculty members from 24 Ontario colleges, has urged its members to reject the college’s final offer that is being brought to vote by management on Feb 10, under the auspices of the Ontario Labour Relations Board. OPSEU’s bargaining team had refused to bring the proposal to faculty itself.
For background and more coverage of this story, please click here
While representatives on either side post new fact sheets and updates almost daily, it clouds the facts and arguments debated at the bargaining table.
As it stands, the union’s most recent proposal for settlement asks for the following:
- 7.5 per cent salary increase over three years for all faculty
- increased job security by limiting external contracts
- workload considerations and protections for full-time faculty, including additional paid time for preparation, special circumstances and out-of-class assistance for students
- increases in health and insurance plans
Most of these provisions follow quoted recommendations from the workload task force, that assessed workload concerns following the 2006 Ontario colleges strike. As part of their new contract, OPSEU is asking that these recommendations come into fruition, as they argue they have yet to be addressed.
A week after the union proposed this contract proposal, the colleges tabled their final offer, which includes:
- 5.75 per cent salary increase over three years
- Additional time allotments for out-of-class assistance for teachers with an excess of 260 students
- Maintains previous workload agreements, with some adjustments
The colleges bargaining team maintains that many of the recommendations made by the task force have been implemented to date, but the colleges final offer does address and accept several of the proposed updates and changes to workload, health, safety and grievances.
Meanwhile, as faculty wait to vote on this final offer for settlement, OPSEU has posted several new fact sheets outlining reasons faculty should vote “no” on the most recent offer. These reasons include a salary increase they say is “less than what high school teachers and other Ontario post-secondary teachers were given,” and that the offer “ignores the Task Force’s key recommendations.”
Ultimately, the fact sheets read as propaganda, and while the union leaders have the right to spread whatever message they want to their members, in order to achieve a settlement, avoid a strike, and have a fair and informed vote on the most recent offer allowing faculty to decide if the deal works for them, they need all the facts. And not the ones that make OPSEU look like warriors and the colleges look like bloodsuckers.
Ontario colleges quiet on strike contingency plans
Student anxiety grows as Feb. 11 strike deadline draws near
Jody MacDonald lost his job in the recession, applied for Ontario’s Second Career Program and received grant money to go back to school. He is now in his first year of a Registered Practical Nursing program at St. Lawrence College.
Faculty will be voting on the colleges’ final offer on Feb. 10. If it fails, faculty are set to strike on Feb. 11, and that could ruin Jody’s chances at a fresh start. “I am 40. I don’t have time like the majority of the people in college have. I have a mortgage and bills, [and have been] just barely scraping by for two-and-a-half years. A strike will impact heavily, to the point of possibly throwing the year of education I have away and going to work flipping burgers,” he says.
For more strike coverage please click here
Vikki Brannan is two months away from graduating with a diploma in the Social Service Worker program at Durham College. She’s feeling the pressure of graduation coming, but a strike would mean that her program could possibly not finish on time, and that she could lose her work placement. “My biggest concerns are redoing the term, borrowing more money to do so, losing my day care [placement] space and not graduating in April,” she says. “It’s very difficult to put alternate plans in place with two months left.”
Perhaps, most of all, students like MacDonald and Brannan are frustrated that they’re largely being kept in the dark about possible plans should a strike occur. “My college has not informed us of their so-called contingency plans, although they assure us that these are in place. I have no idea what these are, in terms of finishing the term and attending [my] placement,” Brannan says.
But, according to Emily Marcoccia, director of marketing and communications at Fanshawe College, the colleges have good reason to keep quiet. “We have plans, but they won’t be provided in detail until the urgency is imminent or upon us,” she says. “We just don’t want to mislead students into thinking there’s another way to learn. They need to go to class.”
Marcoccia says that Fanshawe’s pre-existing emergency operations control group has been working on contingency plans since last fall and that students will be notified immediately once the likelihood of a strike is forthcoming. “We’re fully planning that there isn’t a strike, but it would be unreasonable to not have a group working on this.”
She notes that the 2006 college faculty strike has college administrators more prepared than ever to deal with the ramifications again, and ensure students finish out their year as undisrupted as possible. “We are telling our students that in the past, no Fanshawe College student has lost their year as the result of a strike, unless they were in poor academic standing before the strike began,” she says. “Anxiety levels have risen dramatically, though,” she adds. “All the colleges are in the same position in this regard. But it does cause our students anxiety who want to complete their year, do their exams and get those jobs,” she says. “That’s what colleges do; they get people jobs.”
UPDATE: Colleges to bring final offer to teachers
Union advises faculty to vote ‘no’
The College Compensation and Appointments Council announced this morning that they will be bringing their final offer directly to faculty. The colleges placed a request to the Ontario Labour Relations Board to prepare a strike vote after the Ontario Public Service Employees Union announced a strike deadline yesterday, of Feb 11. The union indicated it would be open to binding arbitration.
College teachers voted Jan. 13 to give OPSEU`s bargaining team a strike mandate.
Last week, the OPSEU bargaining team rejected management`s final offer, and denied requests to bring the proposal to faculty. The union, representing 9,000 academic staff at Ontario`s 24 community colleges, told the Appointments Council that if they want teachers to vote on their final offer, that they could bring it to faculty themselves, which is what the colleges are now doing.
“We are asking that the offer go to a vote because we think the faculty should have an opportunity to have their say,” said Rachel Donovan, chair of the college`s bargaining team, in a release.
The day of the vote is yet to be determined.
UPDATE: OPSEU has released a statement encouraging faculty to vote ‘no’ to the college’s offer. However, the union says if the colleges are unable to arrange a vote on the proposal until February 12, that OPSEU would postpone its Feb 11 strike deadline to give faculty a chance to vote on management’s final offer.
OPSEU sets strike deadline for Feb 11
Union opens the door to binding arbitration
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union representing Ontario college faculty announced today it has given college management until Feb 11 to reach an agreement and avoid a strike. Last week, negotiations stalled after the College Compensation and Appointment Council tabled its final offer. Management wants the union to take their proposal to teachers for a vote, while the union says the offer falls too far short of OPSEU’s demands. The union has said that if the colleges want faculty to vote on the deal, they can call the vote themselves.
OPSEU represents 9,000 academic staff at Ontario’s 24 community colleges. The bargaining team was given a strike mandate by faculty in a vote held Jan 13. Whilethe colleges have increased the salary increments on offer, and shortened the collective agreement to three years, down from four, the two sides are still in disagreement on how to implement the recommendations of the Joint Workload Taskforce Report.
In a release, chair of the OPSEU bargaining team, Ted Montgomery said the union is willing to go to binding arbitration. “First and foremost, we want to reach a negotiated settlement . . .If the Colleges won’t bargain that, we are willing to send all our outstanding issues to binding arbitration. The Colleges, however, must agree.”
In speaking notes released to the media, Montgomery says that imposing a deadline will improve the chances of negotiating a deal and avoiding a work stoppage.
As many as 500,000 students could be affected.
For all of On Campus’ coverage of the ongoing negotiations, please click here.
Union rejects college’s final offer
OPSEU won’t bring deal to teachers
The union representing Ontario community college faculty has rejected management’s “final” offer, and refuses to bring it to teachers for a vote.
Ontario’s College Compensation and Appointments Council made the offer to OPSEU on Wednesday after several days of talks. After the union rejected the offer, college management asked OPSEU to bring it back to their 9,000 members for a vote. The council said the offer was better than previous ones because it shortens the contract to three years, instead of four, and offers a slightly higher salary increase.
“We’ve been bargaining for quite some time and we’ve offered everything we can afford and everything we can accept,” said Nancy Hood, vice-chair of the college’s academic bargaining team. “It reflects what we can do in this current environment.”
Hood said the council was still waiting Thursday for an official response from the union, but OPSEU spokesman Greg Hamara said the union will not be putting the offer to its membership for a vote. “Our members in effect rejected the final offer when they authorized the bargaining team to call a strike if we failed to reach an agreement, and that happened on Jan. 13,” Hamara said.
If the college wants the offer put to the teachers, he added, it can present it itself because the only thing the union will consider taking to its members is an agreement recommended by the union. Negotiations are ongoing and neither side has walked away from the table.
In an “Urgent Report” Wednesday night, the council expressed disappointment that the union’s bargaining team had rejected the offer. “We have requested that the union take this final offer of settlement to their membership for a vote,” the report said. “This will allow faculty to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to accept the offer.”
Hood said it wasn’t up to the colleges to present the offer to the teachers, but felt they deserved “the democratic right to choose whether they want the offer or not.”
“It’s the union’s membership and it’s their responsibility to take it to their members,” she said.
About 57 per cent of the teachers who voted earlier this month gave OPSEU a strike mandate to back their demands. A strike would curtail classes for as many as 500,000 students.
The Canadian Press
College strike talks resume
OPSEU releases details of negotiations.
Negotiations between Ontario’s colleges and the union representing faculty have resumed, after faculty voted in favour of a strike on Jan. 13. The two sides were back at the bargaining table on Jan 19. Towards the end of the week, a provincial mediator advised a recess from negotiations. Talks are set to resume Tuesday Jan 26.
On Saturday, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, released an update of the negotiations so far. Initially, the colleges had proposed a 1.75 per cent wage increase for the first two years of a four-year contract, and a 2.0 per cent increase during the final two years. That proposal has been amended to include a 2.0 per cent increase for the second year. OPSEU had been asking for a 2.5 increase in each year of a three-year agreement.
OPSEU also notes that the colleges:
withdrew their demand to increase retiree life insurance premiums. The imposed term would have increased the costs to retirees five-fold. withdrew their demand that an employee who changes from employment at one College to a different College would lose the right to continue with the pension plan. amended the list of arbitrators withdrawing some of the persons they had added when terms and conditions were imposed on November 18.
As for OPSEU, the union has amended their proposal on academic freedom. Whereas before they were calling for academic freedom to be protected in colleges to the same extent it is protected at universities, the union has revised their proposal to more closely align with management’s position, to “make it clear that faculty, in the exercise of academic freedom, remain accountable to external accrediting and regulating bodies, the Ministry, the terms of the Collective Agreement, and program requirements.”
Despite these advancements, both sides remain divided over the recommendations of the Joint Workload Task Force report. Although both sides agreed to the recommendations in March 2009, they are at odds over what it entails. The more than 500 page document made recommendations regarding flexibility in workload, evaluation of faculty, out of class assistance for students, and professional standards and relationships.
OPSEU represents 9,000 academic staff at Ontario’s 24 community colleges. If a strike occurs, it would not be held until the middle of February. Some 500,000 students would be affected.
For all of our coverage of a looming college work stoppage, please click here.
Union torn over strike vote results
Student groups, faculty urge bargaining teams back to the table
After a strike mandate vote found the majority of college faculty represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union in favour of striking, the union and dissenting faculty are at odds with the significance of the vote.
Yesterday unofficial results showed 75 per cent of full-time academic staff voted 57 per cent in favour of a strike and 43 per cent against. The majority at Six of the 24 Ontario colleges included in the collective bargaining unit voted against a strike. These schools were Algonquin, Conestoga, Fanshawe, Georgian, Humber, and St. Lawrence.
OPSEU represents 9,000 college teachers, counselors and librarians at all of Ontario’s 24 community colleges.
Following these results, OPSEU posted a press release on their website quoting president Warren Thomas. “Our members have delivered a clear statement,” Thomas is quoted as saying of the vote, which the release calls a “show of province-wide support.”
But St. Lawrence business professor William Tennant, who created the website stopthestrike.net to urge faculty to vote “no” to the Jan. 13 vote, said the strike does not reflect the unified voice Thomas says it does. “We are somewhat disappointed with the provincial results,” Tennant said via e-mail. “Yet at the same time the results do indicate there is a serious split in the ranks.” Despite Thomas’ optimism, Tennant cited the 43 per cent vote against the strike mandate, which created just a small majority in favour.
Of the valid votes tallied, the six college faculties who voted in majority “no” account for a third of all valid votes (“yes” and no”) of the 24 colleges. While these colleges may now be mandated to strike, if a strike does occur, it is by no means “clear” that Ontario’s colleges are completely onboard.
Meanwhile, among the rhetoric, Tyler Charlebois, director of advocacy for the College Students Alliance, said the CSA is concerned about making sure students have all the facts. He said they are moving forward with “very pointed communications to students” to inform them about the results of the vote and what that means for them.
He said the CSA also wants to ensure learning in the classroom continues as normal. “Its really important to be respectful, not only of the faculty but of the other students in your classroom,” he said. The CSA wants to encourage students to leave talk of a strike out of the classroom so as not to disrupt learning.
As the meager turnout of a student-planned walkout showed, perhaps students are serious about business-as-usual and continuing the classes they fear may be cancelled come mid-February. Both the Charlebois and Tennant said students and faculty are pushing for now is to get both bargaining teams back to the negotiation table to find an agreement and avoid a work stoppage.
“What we are trying to do in this early stage in the aftermath of the vote is to emphasize the need to get back to the table and settle now, so we don’t have to deal with the many challenges in exercising future options during a strike,” Tennant said.
These “future options” Tennant is referring to include the possibility that individual colleges may still provide work for faculty who chose to cross the picket line. After a 2008 amendment to the Collective Colleges Bargaining Act, faculty are now allowed to cross the picket line to work if a college chooses to maintain operations. If enough faculty expressed they were willing to work throughout a strike, the college may be able to keep some programs running. But, Charlebois said, students and the Alliance hope a strike can be avoided entirely.
500,000 full and part-time students would be affected by a strike. The last time Ontario college faculty went on strike was 2006, where schools saw 21 days of work stoppage.
What’s the buzz around your school concerning the strike? E-mail me at jenniferpagliaro[at]gmail.com or leave a comment below.
UPDATE: College faculty vote to strike
Semester could stall in mid-February
The semester is officially under threat for Ontario college students, as faculty voted 57 per cent in favour of a strike mandate on Wednesday, although both sides have indicated a willingness to return to negotiations. If faculty go on strike, it would be the second time since 2006, when there was a 21 day work stoppage.
Greg Hamara, media spokesman for the Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU), says that a strike mandate does not necessarily mean faculty will go on strike. “What it does, is give the bargaining team the authority to call for strike action if negotiations fail to reach a fair settlement,” he said, adding that the union would be looking to strike “no earlier than the middle of February.”
OPSEU represents 9,000 college teachers, counselors and librarians at all of Ontario’s 24 community colleges.
Rachel Donovan, chair of the bargaining team for the College Compensation and Appointments Council, agrees that the strike vote does not have to lead to a work stoppage. “We will be asking OPSEU to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible,” she said.
Talks initially broke down in November after the colleges unilaterally imposed terms and conditions of employment, a power the colleges were granted by the province in a 2008 redrafting of the Collective Bargaining Act. OPSEU has said that imposing terms of employment is “union busting.” Donovan counters that “because talks weren’t going anywhere, we would give them our best offer.”
The union is seeking a 2.5 per cent pay increase in each year of a three-year contract while the colleges are offering 1.75 per cent in each of the first two years and two per cent in the last two years of a four-year deal.
Another point of contention is that both sides argue that the other is refusing to adhere to the Joint Workload Taskforce Report. The more than 500 page document made recommendations regarding flexibility in workload, evaluation of faculty, out of class assistance for students, and professional standards and relationships. Both sides agreed to the terms in March 2009.
“There were four recommendations in that [report] and the colleges have addressed all four recommendations in their terms and conditions,” says Donovan.
Not so, says Hamara. “What we would like to see are those recommendations in this collective agreement, and we believe that management has reneged on what just a few short months ago . . . they had agreed to.”
Do college students care about a strike?
Answer: it doesn’t matter. At least not for the union or the colleges
Yesterday, the creator of the Facebook group “Ontario College Students Against A Strike” Graeme McNaughton had hoped hundreds of his cohorts would walk out of class in protest of a looming college strike. Instead, about 20 showed up. From the Star:
In a spectacular case of diminishing returns, a Facebook antistrike group drew 22,000 members. Then came 4,000 signatures on an online petition, and 356 students – representing 11 schools – promised to walk out of class.
At Humber College’s Lakeshore campus, however, one solitary student, Beth Corbett, turned out to carry a copy of the petition into administration and union offices.Graeme McNaughton, founder of the antistrike Facebook group, said he had found volunteers at 11 colleges who were willing to lead student walkouts. In the end, however, turnout was meagre, and in no case exceeded 20 people.
Does this mean students are unconcerned? The Star seems to think so, writing, “The question is if the province’s 450,000 college students care.” However, the question of whether or not students care about a looming strike misses the point entirely. Of course they care. Why wouldn’t they? The fact that they neglected to step out of class to protest a faculty work stoppage might instead signal: a) that students preferred to stay in class, recognizing that boycotting a service they have already paid for would be ill-advised, or, b) they are sceptical of the influence such a protest would have, or c) they recognize that neither the colleges, or the union, have any economic incentive to take student concerns seriously. This final point needs to be flushed out a bit.
For example, when auto-workers go on strike, and consequently halt production, no one is ever too concerned about consumers. They can always purchase a new car from a competing company. In this situation, the car companies have very real economic incentives to settle and avoid a further loss of market share. Unions, similarly, have reason to end the picketing, as a decline in sales could mean layoffs, and, subsequently, a shrinking of their membership. (This is not to suggest that these concerns don’t arise in the public sector, but they are much more muted.)
The same cannot be said about the possibility of an Ontario wide college strike. When the College Students Alliance says “Students are not Bargaining Chips,” it is misreading circumstances. If students were bargaining chips, it would actually be in their interest. As is, there is little reason to see students as having the sort of influence over a faculty strike, as consumers do in my auto-sector example. This is not simply because students have most likely already paid for their education, or, that the government has already given colleges their operating grants. Though those are very important contributing factors.
Because faculty at all 24 community colleges are represented by the same union and college management are all represented by the same council, students have nowhere else to go. If colleges were represented individually (either on the labour or management sides, or both) students would have the option of switching schools the following year, or, at the very least, persuade friends and family to avoid their particular college. But, because the union has a monopoly on college faculty, and the college administration is also represented collectively, students are a captive market. Of course, they could attend a private college, but those are of dubious quality in Ontario. The only real alternative is to quit school.
For all of On Campus’ coverage of a the possibility of a strike, please click here
Strike vote today
More to come
Ontario College faculty are voting today on whether or not to give a strike mandate to the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, who represent 9,000 academic staff at 24 community colleges. The voting schedule for each college is available here. On Campus spoke briefly with Greg Hamara, media liason for the union, and he says he expects the results of the vote to be in before 8:00pm. Stay tuned.
For On Campus’s coverage of the looming strike click here.
McGuinty urges against strike
College faculty hold strike vote Wednesday
Premier Dalton McGuinty is encouraging both sides to work together to avoid a strike at Ontario’s two dozen community colleges that would affect at least 500,000 students. College instructors will vote Wednesday on whether to give their union a strike mandate. The premier said Tuesday he is encouraging both sides to do whatever they can to come together to work out their differences in a way that doesn’t involve any disruption of learning.
Ted Montgomery, chairman of the union bargaining team for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union which represents 9,000 faculty members, says if they do vote in favour of a strike, a walkout wouldn’t happen for at least a month. He says talks with the colleges broke down Dec. 15 and the key issues are workload, academic freedom and management’s decision in November to impose its offer on the teachers without letting them vote on it.
The union is seeking a 2.5 per cent pay increase in each year of a three-year contract while the colleges are offering 1.75 per cent in each of the first two years and two per cent in the last two years of a four-year deal.
The Canadian Press
For Maclean’s On Campus’ coverage of the looming strike, please click here
Ontario students to “walk out” Tuesday
College students plan to meet in protest of collective strike
At noon Tuesday, Ontario college students have confirmed they will “walk out” of class, the day before Ontario Public Service Employees Union employees are set to vote on a strike mandate.
The “All-Ontario Walkout” is organized by Humber College student Graeme McNaughton, creator of the accompanying Facebook group “Ontario College Students Against A Strike.”
According to the event page, the plan is for participating students to walk out of their respective classrooms and meet at a designated location where copies of a petition protesting the potential strike will be available for them to sign.
These petitions will then be brought to bargaining parties, both the union and school administrations.
Twelve schools already have designated meeting places, some with locations at more than one of their campuses. So far 277 have confirmed their attendance via Facebook, which has more than doubled from last week’s “Attending” count of less than 100.
The strike would affect 500,000 students (350,000 full time students and 150,000 part time students) from 24 Ontario colleges.
The OPSEU represents roughly 9,000 full-time professors, counselors and librarians. Both faculty and student alliances have opposed a potential strike, arguing time away from school would have a negative impact on the quality of education.
The last time Ontario colleges went on strike was in 2006, where a 21-day strike at the tail-end of the second term left students scrambling to catch up on schoolwork in order to graduate, and maintain summer employment or other workplace opportunities. The OPSEU has argued that voting ‘yes’ to a strike mandate does not necessarily mean a strike, but would provide the leverage the union needs at the bargaining table to achieve the settlement they seek.
- photo by churl
For all of On Campus’s coverage of the looming strike please click here
College students prep for strike
Students, faculty urge ‘no’ vote to strike
With next week’s strike vote deadline approaching for Ontario college faculty, hundreds of thousands of the province’s college students prepare for what could be an unwelcome extended holiday.
Full-time professors, counselors and librarians, roughly 9,000, represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, will vote Jan. 13 on giving their bargaining team a strike mandate if a deal cannot be reached.
The results of a strike for 500,000 college students (350,000 full time students and 150,000 part time students) would mean canceled classes, and could mean the extension of classes into summer, or a canceled term if the strike continues well into the four-month semester.
As most students pack their bags to go back to class next week, many are left holding their breath, while some plan demonstrations of their own.
Graeme McNaughton is the creator of the Facebook group ‘Ontario College Students Against A Strike,’ which has over 18,000 members. The petition linked to the group has been signed by more than 3,000 students.
McNaughton started an event called the ‘All-Ontario Student Walkout‘ set for Jan. 12, the day before the strike vote, and student groups have begun to sign-up to participate.
The last major academic strike happened at York University in Toronto where the union for the school’s contract faculty, teaching, graduate and research assistants participated in a 12-week standoff, affecting 50,000 students.
Metro Ottawa spoke to a professor at Algonquin College, one of 24 colleges involved in the collective bargaining, about the possibility of a college-wide strike.
“It doesn’t mean there will be a strike, but it does mean that one is possible,” Rod Bain told Metro. “Unfortunately, it is something that we pretty much need to do in order to move management toward a settlement.”
In a document on why professors should vote ‘yes’ to a strike mandate next Wednesday, the OPSEU said in 15 rounds of bargaining since 1972, there have been 12 strike votes but only three strikes — in 1984, 1989 and 2006.
In 2006 the strike fell just a month before the end of the second term and lasted 21 days, leaving those slated to graduate or to start jobs or work placements scrambling to catch up.
The OPSEU said that in the past when faculty have given the union a strike mandate and subsequently gone on strike, results of bargaining were “significant.”
They also said in another note that students benefit from the union’s conditions, which have included “changing learning environment of students, as well as looking for ways to deal with the increasing number of students attending college.”
Bain told Metro, this time around, professors are asking for a 20 per cent increase in paid time to prepare for classes or to meet with students outside of class time.
However, not all college faculty are on board for a strike. A website authored by William Tenant, a business professor at St. Lawrence College, has cropped up, dedicated to encouraging faculty to vote ‘no’ to a strike mandate next Wednesday.
The College Student Alliance, which represents over 70 per cent of Ontario college students wrote an open letter entitled ‘College students are NOT bargaining chips.’ In it CSA president Justin Fox said: “Students are concerned with the fact that, yet again, there is a threat of a province-wide faculty strike looming over their education.”
- photo by Gamma-Ray Productions
Prof crusades against strike
Says strikes are “disruptive to our students”
With a strike vote just a week away, divisions among college faculty are beginning to surface. William Tenant, a business professor at St. Lawrence College, is calling on his colleagues to vote against a work stoppage.
Negotiations between the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, and the colleges broke down last month, after initially breaking down in November. If faculty vote to strike on Jan 13, the earliest they could walk is Jan 18. The OPSEU represents 9,000 faculty at 24 colleges. A strike would leave the semester in limbo for 500, 000 students.
Responding via email, Tennant says he is urging college professors to vote no because strikes are “disruptive to our students” which is “our reason for being.”
He points to what he says is the failure of previous strikes in 1984, 1989 and 2006. At his website, stopthestrike.net, Tennant summarizes each work stoppage as following a similar trajectory:
College teachers gave weak support to the negotiating team for a strike; Management didn’t budge; Teachers went on strike; Management didn’t budge; Provincial Government passed legislation ordering teachers back to work followed by Binding Arbitration.
There has been little discussion between the union and the colleges since December. Today, the OPSEU released a number of documents outlining why faculty should vote to strike.
Near the top of the union’s concerns is that the colleges in November unilaterally imposed terms and conditions of employment, a power granted by the province in 2008. The union says that under the terms imposed by the colleges, workloads will increase, and that in three years, “College faculty salaries will fall below high school teacher levels.”
According to OPSEU, previous strikes were successful at ensuring workload limits, and, as such were ultimately beneficial to students. One union document says, “Faculty’s working conditions are students’ learning conditions.”
Tennant says that unlike in 2006 when faculty were on strike for three weeks, this year it could last for much longer, suggesting that the province might be reluctant to legislate faculty back to work. “The Ontario Government is $25 billion in deficit. A number of colleges are in deficit. A strike would help their finances.”
In his campaign to stop his colleagues from giving the union a mandate to strike, Tennant still has a long way to go. So far only between 20 and 30 college professors have given him explicit support.
Related: Another year, another strike
