Ontario's community college faculty, including those at Canadore, have rejected the latest offer from the College Employer Council (CEC) by 62 per cent.
"The faculty bargaining team met with the conciliator on Friday and asked that the conciliator approach the CEC to return to the table to negotiate the last few outstanding items or agree to have those items move to binding interest arbitration," Canadore College Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Local 657 president John Patterson told BayToday.
"The CEC refused both options. Faculty will continue with our work to rule job action with the hopes that the CEC will have a change of heart and settle the contract. Or perhaps the respective government ministers will direct them to do so. As it stands, we are still working under imposed terms and conditions."
See: Canadore College professors in 'work to rule' mode as contract negotiations reach impasse
And: Forced contract vote by Ontario college faculty, including Canadore, started today
Patterson says that no other employer in Ontario has ever imposed terms and conditions on their employees twice.
"The CEC has done this twice in the past 12 years. The governance model of the colleges in Ontario is clearly a broken system and needs to be revamped. The college employer council has no accountability to the taxpayers of Ontario. They are a non-government entity. You will see that they are not required to disclose their incomes or any other forms of remuneration they receive."
Negotiations on a new contract started July 1 last year and there was "very little progress made during negotiations," says Patterson.
A work-to-rule job action continues at Canadore College as faculty continue to work without a contract since September 30 of last year.
The faculty started the work to rule on December 18.
See the final offer here.
Patterson is hoping the work to rule doesn't turn into a strike. but that is a possibility he says.
"We're certainly hoping that it doesn't. We want to reject this offer because it is not a good one and we'd like them to come back to the table. We're not finished negotiating. There are just a few things that need to be resolved."
Sticking points include contracting out of faculty work, no job protection for partial-load employees, and workload issues.
