Some 10,000 support staff at Ontario’s 24 publicly-funded colleges are on the brink of walking off the job as crunch talks continue toward a midnight strike deadline.
Staff represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union have been bargaining for a new deal from the College Employer Council for months, but moved toward strike action in August.
Key sticking points appear to relate to job security in the struggling college sector, where a massive reduction in the number of international students has hurt revenue, forced thousands of job cuts and closed campuses.
Christine Kelsey, chair of the College Support Full-Time Bargaining Team, said talks would go until the midnight strike deadline if necessary.
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“College full-time support staff have been bargaining with our employer for months — today, we are bargaining up to a midnight strike deadline in a round that is, at its core, about job security,” she wrote in a statement sent to Global News.
“We are trying to stabilize the system — not just for this term, but for generations to come. We have yet to see any language from the employer on the table which actually protects jobs.
“If that doesn’t change by midnight, 10,000 full-time support staff are ready to strike for the future of student support.”
The College Employer Council acknowledged questions from Global News but did not provide an update, adding that the teams were still in bargaining.
Previously, the group — which negotiates on behalf of public colleges — has said the union’s demands are unreasonable. Among the demands the College Employer Council previously said it could not accept was a promise not to close or merge campuses or reduce staff.
“OPSEU is ignoring the reality that college enrolment and revenues are down as much as 50 per cent,” Graham Lloyd, CEO of the College Employer Council said in a Sept. 5 statement.
“No organization managing a drop like this can commit to these out-of-touch demands. They go far beyond the scope of collective bargaining and threaten the sustainability of Ontario’s college system.”
The strike deadline is currently set for midnight.
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