After more than a month on the picket line, roughly 10,000 support workers at Ontario’s 24 public colleges have reached a tentative deal with their employer, the union representing them said Wednesday.
College support workers — who include librarian technicians, registrar employees and technology support staff — have been on strike since Sept. 11, citing job security and college funding as major concerns.
They are now scheduled to return to work Thursday, and they will soon review the details of the new deal and vote on whether to ratify it, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) said in a news release.
Christine Kelsey, chair of the union’s bargaining team, did not provide details about the deal but said in the release the strike was necessary “to fight back amidst a plan to privatize public education, as well as 10,000 job losses and over 650 program cuts across the system.”
“After months of intensive negotiations with an incredibly difficult employer, the gains made in this agreement would not have been possible without members holding strong these last weeks,” Kelsey said.
In a statement, the College Employer Council (CEC) said a private mediation session over the weekend “broke a bargaining impasse.”
The tentative deal will need to be ratified by Nov. 4, but picketing will end in the meantime, the employer said.
“We are grateful to have them back to work,” CEC CEO Graham Lloyd said in the statement. “Support staff play an important role in our colleges, supporting operations and contributing to student success.”
One of Ontario’s largest public-sector unions is calling on the provincial government to acknowledge newly released data on colleges. The new numbers highlight over 10,000 job losses, and more than 600 program cuts over the last year.
Negotiations between OPSEU and the CEC, which represents publicly funded colleges in the province, began in June. After the previous contract expired in September, more than 10,000 workers went on strike, spurred by job and programming cuts that the union told CBC in August would result in 10,000 job losses.
Citing those mass layoffs, the union had said it was fighting for job security and appropriate funding for public colleges.
The CEC had previously said the union’s demands — which included the prohibition of college closures, campus mergers and any layoff or reduction of staff during the contract period — were fiscally impossible in a time when college enrolments and revenues are down by as much as 50 per cent.
In Wednesday’s release, the union accused Premier Doug Ford’s government, which was not a direct party to negotiations, of underfunding Ontario’s public college system.
“We’ve won more than a contract,” Kelsey said in the release. “After being out in our communities, day after day, the public now understands that our college system is being deliberately defunded as part of the collateral of Ford’s devastating privatization agenda.”
