The College Employer Council has confirmed that the Ontario Labour Relations Board Tuesday ordered a faculty vote to be held from 9 a.m. Nov. 14 through 10 a.m. Nov. 16.
The vote will be conducted by electronic ballot and ensure that the maximum number of faculty can exercise their right to vote says a news release issued late Tuesday by the college management.
“We are still over a week away from the vote results being known and we again request that the strike be suspended for the sake of 500,000 students. The suspension will allow faculty and students to return to class and not lose another week of classes,” said Sonia Del Missier, Chair, Colleges’ Bargaining Team.
“The colleges remain at the table, but we can’t just rely on bargaining to resolve the strike – and our students can’t wait. The faculty vote is another path to end the strike if bargaining is not successful,” said Del Missier.
Balloting information and instructions will be sent directly to faculty from the OLRB in the coming days.
Meanwhile, faculty at Ontario's 24 public colleges is calling on the College Employer Council to get back to the bargaining table and move quickly to end a strike that is now into its fourth week.
"It is nothing short of outrageous that the colleges have refused to continue bargaining and have instead called for a vote on their final offer, which contains serious concessions," said JP Hornick, chair of the faculty bargaining team for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).
“This is a terrible move, and a terrible mistake,” she said. “It guarantees that the strike will continue, and it virtually guarantees that hundreds of thousands of college students will lose their semester.”
Hornick said that, “Realistically, it will be the end of week five before the vote results are even known,” given that the final-offer vote must be supervised by the Ontario Labour Relations Board at all 24 public colleges across Ontario.
“Students can thank their college presidents for putting them in this position,” OPSEU President Smokey Thomas said. “As the parent of two sons who’ve been through college, I have to say I can’t remember a time when the colleges showed such blatant disregard for the well-being of their students.
“Our bargaining team has been willing to compromise to break this logjam and get students back in class,” he said. “It’s a shame the presidents refuse to do the same.”
A major sticking point in the talks from the beginning has been the colleges’ refusal to entertain new contract language around academic freedom to give faculty greater say in how courses are delivered and evaluated.