Ontario forcing end to college strike
Wynne pledges back-to-work legislation but it’s unclear when classes will resume
Ontario college students will head back to class after the Ontario government promised back-to-work legislation to end the bitter strike by faculty.
However, it’s unclear when classes will resume after the NDP opposition blocked the government’s attempt to pass the legislation Thursday night.
The legislature is expected to debate the bill on the weekend.
But Premier Kathleen Wynne’s promise of back-to-work legislation will put an abrupt end to the longest strike in the 50-year history of Ontario colleges.
The legislation will “return Ontario college students to the classroom where they belong,” said Wynne, who had tried unsuccessfully to pressure the colleges and union to reach a deal.
The province is under pressure from hundred of thousands of frustrated and angry students. The strike at 24 colleges is nearing the end of its fifth week, and many students fear their semester is in jeopardy.
“Students have been in the middle of this strike for too long and it’s not fair,” Wynne said in a statement.
Wynne’s statement mentioned that her goal was to have students back in class Monday, but that was before the NDP refused to allow quick passage of the bill.
And even after the legislation is passed, a return to classes might not be immediate. Some colleges, including Algonquin, had previously announced they would need two working days to prepare for a return to classes after the work stoppage ends.
The 24 colleges’ 12,800 professors, partial-load instructors, counsellors and librarians walked off the job on Oct. 16. The dispute was rancorous, with union and management sniping at each other in increasingly heated statements.
Students caught in the middle watched as their semester slipped away. Thousands signed an online petition demanding a tuition refund, and a class-action lawsuit has also been proposed.
The legislation hammer came down after a long day that began with an announcement that college faculty had voted overwhelmingly to reject a contract offer from management.
At Algonquin College, professors trudging though the rain on picket lines stopped briefly to cheer and hug each other when news arrived that union members had voted 86 per cent in favour of rejecting the offer.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union had urged members to vote no.
The turnout was sky high — 95 per cent of members voted.
Picketers said they felt strongly about the issues in the dispute, such as a request for more job security for contract workers who must re-apply for their jobs each semester, and an increase in the number of full-time professors.
Larry Hoedl said he has been teaching for 11 years in the college’s applied museum studies program. As a “partial-load instructor,” he teaches for 11 hours a week in the classroom. But he estimates he spends three times that amount of time meeting and advising students and marking assignments.
“Economically, I make about $20,000 a year. I’m not sure where the poverty line would be, but I can see it from where I stand.”
Only about 28 per cent of Algonquin’s faculty are full-time by the union’s reckoning. That takes a toll on both students and instructors, Hoedl said.
“I make more money now with the strike pay than I did working.”
He said the full-time professors on the picket line are “giving up a lot for people like me. This strike is about precarious work and getting a better balance in the system.”
The vote was a gamble by the College Employer Council, which bargains on behalf of the colleges. It exercised its one-time ability to bring a contract offer directly to union members in a vote organized by the Ontario Labour Relations Board. If members had voted yes, the strike would have ended Thursday.
After the vote result was announced, OPSEU and the Employer Council were called into a meeting with Wynne and Deb Matthews, the minister responsible for post-secondary education. Wynne said she gave the two sides until 5 p.m. to resolve their issues through negotiation or agree to binding arbitration.
“Unfortunately, we have heard from parties that they have reached an impasse in negotiations and that they have not agreed to binding arbitration,” Wynne said in a statement not long after the deadline passed.
Under the legislation, all outstanding issues will be referred to binding mediation-arbitration, Wynne said. The first college faculty strike, in 1984, was also settled with back-to-work legislation. Strikes in 1989 and 2006 ended when both sides agreed to arbitration.
The College Employer Council released a statement saying it welcomed the legislation as the only way to end the strike. It also criticized the union, saying OPSEU had refused on Thursday to voluntarily agree to arbitration, and had asked for a $5,000 return-to-work bonus for each member.
OPSEU responded by blaming the Employer Council for refusing to make a move toward settlement, calling it a “private club” that should be disbanded.
Even as students head back to school, it’s unclear how coursework can be made up.
Colleges have said they have contingency plans to make up lost course time and practical placements. But most of the details depended on how long the strike lasts. They could vary by program, say officials at Algonquin.
Colleges have emphasized that no student has lost a semester in previous strikes but they have not said if there is a date beyond which it would be impossible to complete the semester because of this strike.
Algonquin and La Cité in Ottawa have already announced the Christmas break will be shortened and the fall term extended into January. La Cité has also cancelled its February study week; Algonquin has warned it may do the same.
Both colleges have said they will try to avoid extending the school year into May.
La Cite social work student Stephanie Lavoie said she was happy the strike is over. “But I really hope the teachers get what they were asking for, or at least something reasonable.”
Lavoie said she was also worried about how her course material could be condensed to finish the semester.
Anna Elmhadaage, who is studying kitchen and bathroom design at Algonquin College, says she would prefer to start over in a new semester, without charge, “because at this point I don’t even know what I learned. It was maybe a month we were in school, and we’ve been on strike for a month. It’s been really hard.
“I take a computer course, and you can’t just give me one month of education. September, October, November, December — we would have needed all those months to learn that computer program. And now I haven’t learned anything.”
Algonquin president Cheryl Jensen had urged students to study on their own and try to work ahead during the strike, but Elmhadaage said she had given up trying to do projects on her own. “If I need help, I have no one to ask.”
Students were also upset about having to change or cancel travel plans at Christmas, forgo parttime jobs and incur extra living expenses when the semester extends into January. Some students had planned to graduate in December, and had jobs lined up for January.
“I’m supposed to take another course for next year, and I can’t if I don’t graduate from this one,” said Hope Baxter, a student in Algonquin’s one-year community studies program.
“I’m working, but I can’t give a full availability. I can’t offer full-time if I think I’ll be back. It’s very stressful.”
Katie Brown, an animation student, said some of her classmates have dropped out because they have been offered jobs. She considers herself lucky because she could keep on working on a project while the strike was on.
The province has announced that colleges must put money they have saved during the strike into a hardship fund to help students facing financial difficulties.
Algonquin also says it’s working with the province to develop a travel refund policy for students who had already booked trips home before the strike began.