Faculty at Ontario colleges vote in favour of strike mandate

By News Staff

Faculty at Ontario’s 24 public colleges have voted in favour of a strike mandate.

In a vote held Thursday across the province, 68 per cent voted in favour of giving the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) a mandate to call a strike if negotiations on a new deal fail to produce any results.

Bargaining team chair JP Hornick says they hope the vote result is the incentive the College Employer Council needs to “start negotiating for real.”

“College faculty from across the province debated and voted on 16 proposals to improve the quality and fairness of the college system in Ontario,” said Hornick. “Since bargaining started 10 weeks ago, management has ignored every single one of them.”

Key issues in the dispute include the role of faculty in academic decision-making and fair treatment for contract faculty.

Bargaining is set to resume on September 18.

Lana-Lee Hardacre, president of OPSEU local 237, is hopeful the strike vote won’t end on the picket lines.

“We have had 12 strike votes in the 50 years the colleges have existed, and only three of them resulted in a strike,” Hardacre says. “So we can do it. We can get a negotiated settlement.”

The collective agreement for 12,000 professors, instructors, counsellors, and librarians is set to expire at the end of the month.

Files from 570 News were used in this report

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