Prospect of strike has staff worried
Support staff at Ontario's 24 community colleges, including Fanshawe College, could strike as early as September 7 if they don't get a new contract next week, their union warns.
The 6,000 support staff, which include caretakers, technical support workers and those in charge of releasing OSAP cheques to students, have been bargaining provincially since March. Their existing contract expires Aug. 31.
While the prospect of a strike is not an alluring one, those in the Financial Aid Office have become gravely concerned about the prospect of walking a picket line.
“What if students driving on to campus pretend they don't see us and just plow right through us as we prance around campus entranceways with our signs?,” asked a perplexed staffer who didn't want to be named. “Being plowed over is a real possibility. For years we've just buried our heads in Financial Aid and just ignored the hordes of students who just wanted to ask a simple question, often making them line-up for an hour. Heaven help us.”
“I hope they go on strike,” proclaimed Harold Tutone. “I'd love to see some support staffers bouncing off the hood of my truck. Some of them have driven me around the bend, ignoring me when I come into their offices, never returning an email. I've got my redneck streak going good now that I've seen the Dukes of Hazzard movie five times.”
The concern of being plowed over is a hot button issue for some of Fanshawe's 465 support staff. The fear has many rethinking their position to strike and accepting The College of Compensation and Appointments Council, which represents Ontario's colleges, offer of a three per cent raise over four years, instead of OPSEU's goal of gaining a total wage increase of four per cent over two or three years.
A Council leak suggests that if OPSEU were to strike that the governments lavish offer would be restructured, to possibly include a wage freeze coupled with a onetime rollback of five per cent. The Council wouldn't comment if their strategy was to hope OPSEU would fold like the Dutch and French armies during wartime, though history has showed OPSEU has never had the resolve to tough it out, while their union brethren in the faculty have lived high off the hog.
Most recently in 2004, the Faculty Union, OPSEU local 110, won a two year contract featuring an increase of 7.49 per cent with a three per cent increase that was retroactive to September 2003, teachers who qualified also received a $700 recognition allowance. The faculty contract is also expiring and teachers will be working without a contract to start the year. They could be eyeing a strike action in March with hopes of possibly jeopardizing the school year as leverage, and to win an increase that would be bigger than expected due to the expected savings of the support staffs eventual capitulation.
Disclaimer: Stories printed in the Fanshawe Distorter are in fact fictious. Any resemblance to persons real or dead is unintentional and entirely hilarious.
The 6,000 support staff, which include caretakers, technical support workers and those in charge of releasing OSAP cheques to students, have been bargaining provincially since March. Their existing contract expires Aug. 31.
While the prospect of a strike is not an alluring one, those in the Financial Aid Office have become gravely concerned about the prospect of walking a picket line.
“What if students driving on to campus pretend they don't see us and just plow right through us as we prance around campus entranceways with our signs?,” asked a perplexed staffer who didn't want to be named. “Being plowed over is a real possibility. For years we've just buried our heads in Financial Aid and just ignored the hordes of students who just wanted to ask a simple question, often making them line-up for an hour. Heaven help us.”
“I hope they go on strike,” proclaimed Harold Tutone. “I'd love to see some support staffers bouncing off the hood of my truck. Some of them have driven me around the bend, ignoring me when I come into their offices, never returning an email. I've got my redneck streak going good now that I've seen the Dukes of Hazzard movie five times.”
The concern of being plowed over is a hot button issue for some of Fanshawe's 465 support staff. The fear has many rethinking their position to strike and accepting The College of Compensation and Appointments Council, which represents Ontario's colleges, offer of a three per cent raise over four years, instead of OPSEU's goal of gaining a total wage increase of four per cent over two or three years.
A Council leak suggests that if OPSEU were to strike that the governments lavish offer would be restructured, to possibly include a wage freeze coupled with a onetime rollback of five per cent. The Council wouldn't comment if their strategy was to hope OPSEU would fold like the Dutch and French armies during wartime, though history has showed OPSEU has never had the resolve to tough it out, while their union brethren in the faculty have lived high off the hog.
Most recently in 2004, the Faculty Union, OPSEU local 110, won a two year contract featuring an increase of 7.49 per cent with a three per cent increase that was retroactive to September 2003, teachers who qualified also received a $700 recognition allowance. The faculty contract is also expiring and teachers will be working without a contract to start the year. They could be eyeing a strike action in March with hopes of possibly jeopardizing the school year as leverage, and to win an increase that would be bigger than expected due to the expected savings of the support staffs eventual capitulation.
Disclaimer: Stories printed in the Fanshawe Distorter are in fact fictious. Any resemblance to persons real or dead is unintentional and entirely hilarious.
