Members should have received an update from our bargaining team late last night – if you haven’t received it, the core of the message follows here.
After three days of mediation, the College Employer Council (CEC) has refused any meaningful progress on job security. The parties have not yet reached a deal.
We have repeatedly made it clear that our members are on strike to protect our work – a pathway to settlement must include provisions to protect existing jobs, not just manage job loss.
While we await a response from the employer, the strike remains in effect. Picket lines will continue until a deal is reached – we need to keep up the pressure.
For weeks, the CEC has used the language of “poison pills” to describe our Letters of Understanding (LOUs) to stabilize the college experience for students – putting a temporary pause on layoffs, after thousands upon thousands of job cuts; and putting a temporary pause on campus closures/mergers.
We unconditionally removed these LOUs – which the employer had indicated were blocking the pathway to a deal.
For weeks, College presidents echoed the CEC’s messaging. Yet even when these “blocks” were removed, College presidents directed the CEC to refuse job security provisions that could end this strike.
Over three days of mediation, we sent seven packages across the table. The Colleges responded with four. And for three days, we have re-formulated proposal after proposal in the spirit of reaching a deal – only to be stone-walled on core demands.
None of the Colleges’ proposals have the effect of preventing the loss of a single job. True job security means owning our work and ensuring jobs are not eliminated, not creating new pathways for layoffs or providing extended notice.
The College presidents have chosen to unite against workers, rather than get us back to supporting students – in the midst of an accelerated agenda to dismantle public education.
It’s an insult to us – it’s also an insult to students, families, and community members supporting us.
On Friday, our first day of mediation, Georgian College announced the closure and sale of its Orillia and Muskoka campuses, which has devastated local communities. It is clear that the plan to privatize and sell off our public college system is well underway.
Also on Friday, just after 10 a.m. and with headlines already circulating, the CEC told us that they had no knowledge of this closure – yet the announcement was made at 8:30 a.m.
This employer has lied to us every step of the way – and they’re lying to us now when they say that there’s no better deal to be found. This week, our challenge is to catch them in one single truth.
We will continue to apply pressure, and to keep lines strong we will need to harness the community support we’ve built along the way.
Our collective power has beat back concessions and helped us make headway on some agreed-to items – including shift premiums and enhanced severance.
And it will be our collective power which gets us to the concrete win on job security which we deserve.
National Day of Truth & Reconciliation, Sept. 30
We join many organizations tomorrow in observing the National Day of Truth & Reconciliation, and encourage everyone to wear orange tomorrow in recognition. You can also take a moment to read OPSEU’s own Reconciliation Story, which describes the union’s ongoing efforts to heed the calls to action from the TRC, the Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls Inquiry, and the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous People.
The college has cancelled classes for the day and we will be running reduced pickets in some locations. Workers with shifts scheduled for tomorrow will receive credit for a full shift – you should still come in at the start of your scheduled shift to sign in at your location, and if you wish to work extra hours or are performing other duties on the line you can still do so, as will we have staff on site regardless.