Province accepts solution proposed by OPSEU; Most students will be back in class on Monday
Toronto (25 March 2006) - A strike by faculty members at Ontario's 24 colleges is over after negotiators for the colleges and about 9,100 staff members agreed to binding arbitration. Classes will resume Monday for most of the 150,000 students affected.
The Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU/NUPGE), which represents the faculty, said the dispute will be settled by voluntary binding arbitration as union negotiators first requested on March 22.
“It took two days for the employer to agree to our proposal, but the strike is over,” said Ted Montgomery, the college faculty bargaining team chair.
“We are very pleased that the improvements to education quality that we have been fighting for will now be dealt with by an arbitrator who will consider our proposals, and the employer’s, on their merits," he added.
“We have full confidence in the research and the reasoning that went into crafting our proposals for this round,” Montgomery said.
The arbitrator will also consider salary issues. All other matters have either been agreed to or will remain unchanged in the next collective agreement. The current contract expired on Aug. 31, 2005.
'Inexcusable'
At most of the 24 colleges, students will return to class on Monday. However, a handful say they plan to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday to resume normal schedules for students, a decision that OPSEU has condemned.
“This is absolutely inexcusable and totally incomprehensible,” says Montgomery.
“College management announced their Semester Completion Strategies 12 days ago. It certainly calls into question their competence if, after 12 days of planning, they can’t have the colleges up and running on Monday.”
Institutions affected include Fanshawe (London), Georgian (Barrie/Midland), Seneca (Toronto) and Algonquin (Ottawa)
"Premier McGuinty said he wanted to see students back in the classroom on Monday. It’s time college management got its act together,” Montgomery says.
OPSEU mourns John Stammers
In a tragic footnote to the dispute, John Stammers, a 62-year-old faculty member at Centennial College in Toronto, died Saturday after being hit by a car on picket lines earlier in the week. Police said earlier that no charges would be laid.
OPSEU issued the following statement on Stammers' death:
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It is with deep sorrow that the members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union learned of the death of John Stammers, 62. John Stammers was a professor of Accounting at Centennial College in Scarborough. He was critically injured after being struck by a car while on picket duty on March 20. "On behalf of my local, and all college faculty across the province, and all members of the union, I want to extend our condolences and our deepest sympathy to John's family," said Eileen Burrows, president of OPSEU Local 558. "All of us at Centennial are devastated by this news. "John was a wonderful colleague," Burrows said. "He was very popular with students. He was always patient. He always gave them all his time and attention. And he always took an interest in making the college work better Mr. Stammers was a union supporter and a member of a local union committee, Burrows said. "The local has been receiving cards and e-mails of support from faculty members and OPSEU locals across the province ever since he was injured," she said. "John was a colleague who stood up for the same things all college |
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