Province moves to end 5-week faculty strike
Liberals to introduce legislation again after NDP refuses unanimous consent
Ontario’s Liberal government is moving to introduce back-towork legislation that would end a nearly five-week strike by college faculty, though opposition from the NDP means it may not happen quickly.
Premier Kathleen Wynne said unanimous support of the legislation would have meant students could return to class on Monday morning.
“We have said repeatedly that students have been in the middle of this strike for too long and it is not fair,” she said in a statement. “We need to get them back to the classroom.”
But the NDP blocked a government attempt to table the bill by refusing unanimous consent to allow the Liberals to do so Thursday evening after the normally scheduled time period for introducing legislation.
Some 500,000 students have been out of class since the strike by 12,000 college professors, instructors, counsellors and librarians began Oct. 15. It is now the longest strike in colleges’ history in Ontario.
Students at St. Clair College in Windsor were voicing frustration earlier Thursday after 95 per cent of Ontario faculty members participated in the three-day contract vote this week. Eighty-six per cent rejected the latest offer.
“We’re just not a priority in this,” said Alvee Rabbani, a first-year business student from Bangladesh. “We’ve invested a lot to be in class.
“The loss is ours. We’re the ones suffering most.”
Nick Goran, St. Clair College’s student president, had met with school officials to discuss possible contingency plans if the work stoppage continued.
“Some students just want to start again in January,” Goran said.
“Other’s don’t because they already have commitments at the end of the school year or for university next year.
“It’s difficult to plan because no one knows for sure when this will end.”
St. Clair College vice-president of communications and community relations John Fairley said the college has already announced significant changes to the academic calendar to make up some of the missed time.
The month-long Christmas break will be pared to just one week. Students will attend classes up until Dec. 22 and will return a week earlier to resume classes Jan. 2. Exam week will also be pushed back into a yet-to-be announced week in January.
The legislature was set to reconvene Friday, when the Liberals will again try to introduce the legislation in the afternoon.
If it is again blocked, they say they intend to sit through the weekend.
NDP house leader Gilles Bisson said his party has never supported back-to-work legislation.
“In the end, the government has the tools,” he said. “It can do what it has to do in order to be able to pass this legislation over the weekend.”
Advanced Education Minister Deb Matthews said with unanimous consent the legislation could have been introduced and sped through first, second and third readings Thursday night.
“We could have done it in 10 minutes and then students would know they’re back in the classroom on Monday,” she said. “It was very disappointing that the NDP decided to block it.”
The legislation would have to pass Friday for the province’s 24 colleges to prepare for classes to resume Monday, Matthews said.
The College Employer Council, which represents the colleges, said it supports the introduction of back-to-work legislation as soon as possible.
Wynne had asked the colleges and the union to return to the bargaining table Thursday after workers voted to reject a contract offer, but within several hours the two sides reached an impasse when they could not agree to binding arbitration.
The colleges have said the offer 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.
Under the proposed back-towork legislation, the strike would end and all outstanding issues would be referred to binding mediation-arbitration.
Wheatley resident Caitlin Foulon, a first-year student at Fanshawe College, is one of the 24 plaintiffs representing each college in a students’ lawsuit seeking tuition refunds for missed classes. She feels the damage to the first semester may be beyond repair.
“We’re (plaintiffs) pro faculty in what they’re seeking, but we’re disappointed we’re still not in the classroom after five weeks,” Foulon said.
“Realistically, the semester just needs to be cancelled. The contingency plans call for five or six weeks to be crammed into two weeks.
“It’s just not going to be a good learning environment or experience if that happens.”