CREDIT: SCREENSHOT FROM CTV NEWS TORONTO'S LIVESTREAM OF THE OPSEU'S NOV. 7 PRESS CONFERENCE.
Faculty members will soon vote on whether to accept or decline the College Employer Council's latest offer of settlement. Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the OPSEU held a press conference with other union members on Nov. 7 to discuss the latest strike update.

Following four days of a media blackout, both the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) and the College Employer Council (CEC) have updated the public on negotiations at the bargaining table. The OPSEU bargaining team rejected the CEC’s latest offer of settlement. For a full version of the CEC’s latest offer of settlement, please visit www.thecouncil.ca.

As a result of the OPSEU refusing the CEC’s offer of settlement, the CEC have chosen to put forth a faculty vote that will be scheduled sometime over five to 10 days by the Ontario Labour Relations Board. College faculty from across the province will vote whether or not to accept to CEC’s latest offer of settlement.

In a Nov. 6 news release from the CEC, the chair of the CEC bargaining team Sonia Del Missier said that the offer they put on the table should have ended the strike. “An employer vote is never a preferred path, because a settlement should be reached at the bargaining table. But we have exhausted all efforts at the bargaining table and now our faculty will decide,” Del Missier said in the news release.

According to a Nov. 6 news release on the OPSEU website, the OPSEU said the CEC should be back at the bargaining table continuing to negotiate instead of calling for a vote that will prolong the strike further.

“Negotiation is the only way to go at this juncture,” Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the OPSEU said in the news release. “I agree completely with recent statements by the Premier and by Advanced Education Minister Deb Matthews that the solution to this strike is at the bargaining table.”

According to the OPSEU news release, JP Hornick, the Chair of the college faculty bargaining team, explained that the only issue of dispute at the table now is academic freedom. The OPSEU are proposing that faculty should have more say in decision making that happens in the classroom. 

“We have said all along that faculty have a better plan for the colleges, and we do,” Hornick said in the news release. “Our objective since we began bargaining in July has been to improve education quality for students and fairness for faculty.”

According to the CEC news release, the government has agreed to put forth a task force that will examine issues such as staffing models and issues regarding precarious work. In addition, the CEC is asking the OPSEU to suspend the strike for students and faculty to return to the classroom for the days leading up to the faculty vote.

According to a CBC Toronto article titled, Negotiations break down as college strike enters 4th week, “OPSEU said there were no plans to suspend the labour dispute.”

The faculty vote will be decided based on a 50 per cent + 1 majority.

In a Nov. 7 OPSEU news conference, both Hornick and Thomas stressed how the CEC just needs to come back to the table to negotiate table, with Hornick saying the ball is now in the CEC’s court.

Hornick said the OPSEU came up with an offer Monday evening, but CEC rejected it. Academic freedom seems to be a main area of where both parties don’t see eye to eye.

Hornick also noted how the CEC is “out of touch with the times, out of touch with the way the world is today.”

The Interrobang went out to the picket line on Nov. 7 and spoke with a professor to get his general thoughts on the latest strike news. The name of the professor will remain anonymous.

“This has gone on far longer than we had ever hoped it would. I think everybody is rather disappointed that we did not reach an agreement over the weekend and certainly very frustrated that we are still out here because we didn’t become professors and instructors to walk picket lines. We, of course, want to teach and we understand our students’ frustrations when they say they want to be taught. We are upset that we are still out here when we could have been back in the classroom. We don’t understand why the CEC has made a decision that will ultimately prolong this when it could have ended,” the professor said.

According to President Peter Devlin in a corporate communications press release on Nov. 1, Fanshawe College has extended class schedules and exams to Dec. 22 at the moment with no classes or exams running from Dec. 23 to Jan. 1.

The strike across the province has currently lasted 23 days, making it the longest college faculty strike in Ontario’s history.  

Michele Beaudoin explained to the Interrobang earlier last month that 21,000 full-time and 22,000 part-time and continuing education Fanshawe students are currently out of classes and 847 Fanshawe faculty members are currently out on strike.

For more updates on information from the OPSEU, visit https://opseu.org/.

For more updates on information from the CEC, visit www.thecouncil.ca.