Ontario college support workers set to strike, CEC says they’re being ‘unreasonable’

After 21 days of bargaining, the union representing 23,000 support staff at Ontario’s public colleges has given strike notice.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) says strike action will begin Sept. 11 if a deal is not reached.

“For over 19 months, part-time support staff have been forced to work under an expired contract by an employer that is refusing to bargain,” said Sara McArthur Timofejew, a program support officer at Mohawk College and chair of the part-time support staff bargaining team.

“We’ve been fighting for bottom-line items like paid sick days and a livable wage increase for a workforce that mostly makes minimum wage. It’s clear that we need to take this next step to bring serious negotiations back to the table.”

The College Employer Council is calling OPSEU’s demands “unreasonable.”

“OPSEU is looking for a strike, when it should be looking for a deal on behalf of full-time support staff,” Graham Lloyd, CEO of College Employer Council (CEC) said in a statement on Wednesday.

“A strike does not benefit anyone in the college community – not students and not their members.”

According to the CEC, OPSEU’s most recent proposal includes a total ban on campus mergers or closures during the life of the new collective agreement.

The proposal comes at a tense time for the education sector, as over 650 college programs have been suspended or cancelled throughout the province.

OPSEU says years of “deliberate government underfunding and administrative mismanagement” are to blame for the program cuts, and close to 10,000 college faculty of staff have been let go or are projected to lose their jobs as a result.

“These are good, family-sustaining jobs leaving our communities when unemployment is at a record high in Ontario – especially small communities, where colleges are an economic hub,” JP Hornick, President of OPSEU/SEFPO said.

“This is the moment when we have to fight for what’s left in our backyard for our future generations. Not just for those of our kids that want to stay, but also for those who will be forced to leave home to find an education.”

In a statement released Monday, Hornick noted that provincial grants covered three-quarters of operating expenses when the college system was designed in 1967. Today, those grants cover less than a third and have fallen 30 per cent over the last decade.

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