Dozens of striking college teachers rallied outside Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli’s office this morning.
It's the second time in the past three weeks that teachers have rallied there asking for Fedeli's help to end the strike.
OPSEU has turned down the latest management offer and the college bargaining team is asking that the strike be suspended and professors return to classes.
That includes a request to the Ontario Labour Relations Board on Tuesday to order a faculty vote from 9 a.m. Nov. 14 through 10 a.m. Nov. 16.
See related story: Date set for college faculty vote on suspending strike
John Patterson is the President of OPSEU local 657 at Canadore College.
He says there is frustration on the picket line, but morale is still very high.
“People are very frustrated and angry with the approach that the College Employer Council has taken with the lives of our students, it is absolutely reckless,” said Patterson.
“The fact of the matter is that we could have had this finished on Monday and we would be back to work today, the students would have been back in the class tomorrow and they decided that they were going to try to play a fast one. We had only one thing frankly to negotiate. They showed up on Monday and not only did they renege on the things that they agreed to over the weekend, they created some more language and pushed this forced vote on us.
“It is just a cynical contemptuous approach to bargaining, absolutely disgusting. The folks that are involved, I think all the college presidents, every single one of them should be held accountable for the mess that they have created,” Patterson bluntly stated.
Vic Fedeli spoke with Patterson and took the time to speak with some students protesting outside his office as well. He says he will write another letter to the premier expressing their concerns.
“It will say exactly what the members here want me to say that both sides need to get back to the bargaining table immediately. This cannot wait for any voting to happen, so the students do not lose this semester,” stated Fedeli.
“I said three things, number one, the biggest concern of everybody here and everybody can agree the biggest concern is that no serious harm be done to the students semester, the second issue, is I will take their message to the premier this afternoon that the two sides be immediately sent back to the table and the third thing is to remind the premier she should not be gambling with students futures.”
Andrea Pond is an Office Administration student at Canadore. She was among the handful of students that attended the downtown rally. She is one of the organizers of a student rally which is expected to take place near the entrance to Canadore College on Friday afternoon.
“Our frustration is probably as high as the teachers,” said Pond, a New Brunswick native.
“Not only is our future in jeopardy but the financial costs that are taking a toll on us, it is weighing on us, we are getting frustrated by no end. It is something we did not think was going to happen when we signed up to go to college. We did not expect that our first semester would be used as bargaining chips and it is not right. It is not right to keep this going as long as they are trying to.
“They need to get back to the table and they need to make a fair collective agreement to get us back into our classes - to get us back to the classes we paid to be taught.”
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.
See related story: Canadore may extend semester
Canadore College employs 108 full-time faculty but Patterson believes that number will drop in the near future if the proper deal isn’t settled.
“Their real agenda is they want to continue to erode the amount of full-time faculty,” said Patterson.
Meanwhile, the local 657 strike team has released a video titled, "Faculty striking for students calls out flawed "business" model. See below.
VIDEO: Faculty striking for students calls out flawed "business" model from C.Faculty on Vimeo.