College strike over: Back to school as province steps in

Fleming College will welcome students back to campus Tuesday for regularly scheduled classes after the province passed backto-work legislation, ending the five-week college strike.

MPPs worked overtime on the weekend to pass the bill - which not only ends the provincial colleges strike, but sends all outstanding issues to binding mediation-arbitration.

“This is a last resort. We did everything we could to avoid getting here,” said Liberal Advanced Education Minister Deb Matthews in the legislature of Bill 178.

“This strike is affecting hundreds of thousands of students. It is unfair to keep them out any longer.”

Third reading of the back-towork legislation passed by a 39-18 vote Sunday afternoon.

The Liberal sand Tori es votes for it, the New Democrats against.

Don Sinclair, CEO of the College Employer Council, which represents the colleges in these negotiations, said the next priority is students.

“While I appreciate this has been a long work stoppage, it’s been divisive, at some point though, people have to set aside their emotions and now focus on the students and getting them their academic year,” he said.

“Once the legislation is passed, on day-one, faculty will come back and work with deans and their managers to plan out the academic years, and then day-two the students will be back.”

The 12,000 professors, instructors, counsellors, and librarians have been on the picket line since Oct. 16.

Sinclair said it could be four to six weeks before an arbitrator has all the information needed to make a decision on a new deal.

“We’ll have a collective agreement when it’s done,” he said. “Typically both parties are not happy (with) arbitration because (that’s) just the way it works.

“But at the end of the day, you can move forward.”

Sinclair said there’s a task force which will study the staffing complement in a couple of Ontario colleges, look at staffing models across North America, and also funding.

The council has said its last offer to faculty included a 7.75 per cent salary increase over four years, improved benefits and measures to address concerns regarding part-time faculty, with language surrounding academic freedom remaining as the only major outstanding issue.

But OPSEU said the offer contained ‘serious concessions’ that were not agreed to, which would erode faculty rights and contribute to an unsustainable staffing model.

Ontario college faculty have said their contract offer includes a 50:50 ratio of full-time to contract faculty, which currently sits at more than 70 per cent contract faculty. Increased job security for partial-load faculty, who currently work on one-semester contracts, and academic freedom to give faculty a stronger voice in academic decision-making are also included.

The provincial government has ordered the colleges to create a fund - using savings from the strike - to help students who might be experiencing financial hardship because of the labour dispute.

Matthews estimates Ontario’s colleges have saved about $5 million so far.

Law firm Ch arney Lawyers filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the 24 colleges last week, saying 14 students have come forward to potentially stand as rep- resentative plaintiffs.

The notice of action alleges the colleges breached contracts with students by failing to provide vocational training and a full term of classes. It seeks full refunds for students who choose not to continue with their programs and refunds ‘equivalent to the value of the lost instruction’ for students who do want to continue.

Also, an online petition asks that students be refunded a portion of their tuition, depending on how long the faculty walkout lasted. The petition had almost 139,000 signatures as of Sunday.