Price of college strike in Windsor: 1,232 students

One thousand, two hundred and thirty-two students who enrolled in St. Clair College are no longer enrolled in St. Clair College.

That’s the price of the five-week strike by college faculty.

One thousand, two hundred and thirty-two students who were going to classes Oct. 13, the last day before the strike began Oct. 16, are no longer going to classes. They dropped out.

An average of 100 students a day began dropping out, collecting their tuition refund, after classes finally resumed Nov. 21. By the deadline Tuesday, 12 per cent of students had left, more than double the five per cent attrition expected during first semester.

This is in a city that lags the province and the country in post-secondary education. A manufacturing city that needs skilled trades. A city bidding for a major tech company that wants a highly educated workforce. That’s the price of this strike. The two sides, the College Employer Council, which represents the 24 colleges in Ontario, and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represented the 12,000 striking faculty, will each get something in binding mediation and arbitration imposed when the government legislated the faculty back to work.

But the 500,000 students affected across the province — there’s no win for them.

The strike dragged on too long, many students here said. There is too much work to catch up, too much pressure.

The semester will extend into the Christmas break. Classes could be lengthened. More classes could be added. A fund will help cover students’ unexpected expenses.

Still, many believed they faced a compressed curriculum to be learned at top speed.

They will return in January, many said. Or September. They’ll lose a semester. They could lose a year.

This strike was justified when it began. Seventy per cent of college faculty are part time. They’re not paid much. They don’t know if or what they’ll teach the next semester. They’re precarious labour. It hurts not only the parttime faculty. It hurts students who may not get teachers who are experienced and fully engaged.

Labour reform will soon require employers to pay full-time and part-time staff the same rate, and a provincial task force will now study the issue of part-time faculty.

But that wasn’t enough for the union. It also demanded “academic freedom.” Teachers had been out of class for a month. That was the main issue left. And the strike continued.

Then there’s the College Employer Council. It asked for a forced vote on its last offer, knowing it would provoke the union, knowing the union would likely reject it — wasting another week.

The two sides negotiated only four days in four weeks at one point. Students rightly pointed out they were being trained to be professionals yet the two sides were anything but.

And there was the government. The Conservatives legislated striking college faculty back to work after 24 days in 1984. The latest strike went 33 days, the longest in the colleges’ 50-year history, before the Liberals acted. Why? Governments don’t like arbitrated settlements because they usually cost more. But this is an unpopular government facing an election in June and counting on public-sector unions to support it.

The Liberals just extended their contract with thousands of civil servants, offering them a 7.5 per cent raise over four years. They’re represented by OPSEU. The announcement was in June, six months before the contract expired.

When the strike hit four weeks, the government announced a student hardship fund.

“(Students) deserve our support,” Advanced Education and Skills Development Minister Deb Matthews said. They deserved to be back in class. The NDP, of course, opposed the legislation, knowing they would lose but still delaying the return to class for three days.

As usual, all sides, consumed by their own interests, were oblivious to the students.

Everyone wants a negotiated settlement. But when an elementary or secondary school teachers’ strike drags on too long, the Education Relations Commission, an independent body, can rule whether the school year is in jeopardy. If it does, the government can legislate the teachers back to work — or face parents’ wrath. It’s not a hard choice.

No one does that for colleges or universities. Someone should.