Ontario colleges making last ditch effort to avoid faculty strike.
Picket line.
Stock photo
As a teacher strike looms over Ontario's community colleges, the colleges' bargaining team is making a last-ditch effort to avoid the Feb. 11 strike deadline by stepping around the union and making an offer directly to the faculty.The Ontario Public Service Employee's Union (OPSEU) rejected what the chair of colleges' bargaining team, Rachel Donovan, described as a final offer on Jan. 27. After OPSEU rejected the offer and refused to send the offer to a staff vote, the colleges are utilizing their power to send the contract to a one-time-only direct vote by all college faculty, who had previously passed a vote to give the union a strike mandate of 57 per cent.The faculty vote will take place on Feb. 10 and has the potential to legally bind the faculty into a new collective agreement."We believe that we have a fair and reasonable offer on the table for our faculty and we believe they should have the right to decide for themselves," said Donovan.The final offer includes a 5.9 per cent salary increase over three years and improvements in workloads and in workload protection, she added.Representatives from OPSEU have previously stated they would prefer not to strike, but were not yet satisfied on issues of salary and academic freedoms for teachers.The option of binding arbitration is no longer part of the collective bargaining act. Unofficial results of the faculty vote will be tallied immediately after the vote on Feb. 10.