The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) has announced that over 15,000 Ontario college faculty will be participating in a strike mandate vote between Oct. 15 and 17.
The OPSEU College Bargaining Team and the College Employer Council (CEC) entered into contract negotiations July. 15, with all faculty proposals on the table as of Sept. 10.
According to a press release from the OPSEU, the union says that the hopes of reaching an on-time agreement have been undercut by numerous concessions proposed by the employer.
In 2022, an award issued by Arbitrator William Kaplan mandated the creation of a Workload Task Force to comprehensively review faculty workload. The results of this study were released for public review on Sept. 3.
The report confirmed faculty concerns that all modes of instruction delivery have resulted in workload increases, on top of increased time needed for student supports; partial-load members are performing work duties outside their contracts; and counsellors and librarians report unpaid overtime without mechanisms to address workload.
According to the press release, college faculty currently have a ceiling of 5 minutes and 24 seconds per student, per week for evaluation and data from the Workload Task Force Report indicated that only a quarter of faculty receive that much time – most have less, and overall, faculty have nearly an hour less weekly for evaluation than they did10 years ago.
“For months, we have highlighted the need to modernize our contracts to meet today’s student and faculty needs,” said Michelle Arbour, Acting Chair of the College Faculty Bargaining Team and faculty at Lambton College in a press release.
“Quality education isn’t supported by reducing student evaluation time or advancing narrow conceptions of ‘teaching’ which exclude supporting students outside the classroom.”
According to the CEC website, some of the tabled proposals include overtime pay provisions for counsellors and librarians, wage and benefit increases with a four-year agreement to ensure stability, the modernization of the definition of the academic year without impacting faculty vacations which would be Sept. 1 to Aug. 31.
The parties will continue bargaining on Oct. 8 and enter conciliation on Oct. 9, with a strike vote set to take place virtually on Oct. 15 to 17.
However, the CEC says they remain committed to reaching an agreement without the need for a strike
