Province moves to end college strike

The Ontario government says it will legislate striking college faculty back to work, starting the process of bringing the nearly five-weeklong labour disruption to an end.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said the government would table back- to- work legislation in Ontario’s legislature today, in hope of returning students to class on Monday.

The move comes after the premier asked the College Employer Council, which represents the province’s 24 colleges, and the union representing striking faculty to return to the bargaining table Thursday.

Wynne says after several hours of talks the parties reached an impasse.

Wynne asked both the opposition Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats to vote with the government to pass the legislation quickly.

The strike, which involves 12,000 college professors, instructors, counsellors, and librarians, began Oct. 15 and has left 500,000 full time and part time students out of class.

Earlier Thursday, faculty members at 24 colleges across the province rejected a contract offer from the College Employer Council Thursday morning, the union representing them said on its website.

Eight- six per cent of faculty voted to reject the council’s Nov. 6 offer, and 95 per cent of the 12,841 members on the voters’ list voted, said Ontario Public Service Employees Union ( OPSEU).

That 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.

But OPSEU, which represents college professors, instructors, counsellors, and librarians, said the offer contained “serious concessions” that were not agreed to, which would erode faculty rights and contribute to an unsustainable staffing model.

The strike, now in its fifth week, has kept some 500,000 students in Ontario out of class.

JP Hornick, chair of the faculty bargaining team for the OPSEU, said, “No one is surprised that college faculty rejected the council’s forced offer. It was full of concessions and failed to address our concerns around fairness for faculty or education quality.”

“We stand with hundreds of thousands of college students when we say ‘ enough already.’ Let’s get back to the bargaining table and complete these negotiations.”

On its website, the union said the forced offer vote was a one- time option allowed under the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act.

“It is unfortunate that council extended our strike and kept students out of class for an extra two weeks by calling for this vote,” said Hornick, “But now that it’s over, it’s time to move on.”

In the release, Hornick said with cooperation from the council at the bargaining table, she believed the strike can be settled in short order.

Advanced Education Minister Deb Matthews said the government was looking at a “range of options” to get students back into the classroom. She also had sharp words for both the colleges and the union and how they’ve allowed the strike to drag on.

“I would say that both parties share the failure, and it is a failure,” she said. “Make no mistake about it. Both parties need to recognize that their approach to this date has not resulted in any kind of success. They have to focus on students.”

Matthews also said that she believed the semester can be salvaged.

“We are approaching the time where we will start to see people with lost semesters but we are not there yet,” she said. “We need to get them back immediately so that the semester can be saved.”

The provincial government has ordered the colleges to create a fund — using savings from the strike — to help students who may be experiencing financial hardship because of the labour dispute. Advanced Education Matthews has estimated Ontario’s 24 colleges have saved about $ 5 million so far.