College support staff hit the picket lines in what their union was calling a 鈥渨atershed moment鈥 in the struggling post-secondary sector聽鈥 as their employers warned they can鈥檛 guarantee there won鈥檛 be further job losses or campus shutdowns.
With no indication that talks would resume anytime soon, dozens of support staff picketed outside Humber College’s campus in north Etobicoke on Thursday. The Ontario Public Service Employees鈥 Union called the strike just after midnight after its negotiators were unable to reach a deal with the College Employer Council despite last-ditch negotiations.
The staff at Humber were just a fraction of the 10,000 members who have walked off the job.
OPSEU said it is fighting for job security as colleges grapple with serious financial challenges that have already led to layoffs, program cuts and campus shutdowns across the province.
“Students deserve quality services kept in-house 鈥斅爊ot contracted out 鈥斅燼nd done by the support staff who know how to do the job and have institutional knowledge,” OPSEU said in announcing the strike to its college members early Thursday morning. Talks broke off Wednesday afternoon.
While the job action will shutter student services and聽could delay some labs that rely on support staff to operate, faculty are not a part of the job action and classes are expected to go ahead as scheduled.
Outside Humber College’s north campus, striking staff and supporters, including student workers and faculty, carried signs that read “On Strike to Save Jobs!” and “Cut the Profits Not the Wages!”
Some picketers blocked intersections leading into the college’s parking lot and bus terminal, leading to backups as commuter students and others tried to get on campus. Despite the traffic jams, some passing cars and buses honked in solidarity.
“This is a watershed moment,” OPSEU president JP Hornick told the media at a press conference outside Humber on Thursday morning.聽
“This fight touches all of us,” they continued. “We’re the college community support staff, faculty, students and allies all together. Because without us, you cut the heart out of education.”
JP Hornick speaks to the media at a press conference outside Humber College’s north campus Thursday.
Nathan Bawaan/色色啦 StarFor the employers’ part,聽Graham Lloyd, CEO of the College Employer Council, said schools are disappointed no deal was reached, but that they could not accept the “poison pills” the union wanted, including a guarantee of no job losses.
The council, which is the official bargaining agent for the province’s 24 public colleges, said that when “enrolments and revenues are down by as much as 50 per cent, OPSEU continues to insist on demands that are fiscally impossible.”
Lloyd said asking for “a complete ban on campus closures, college mergers and staff reductions could force colleges into bankruptcy ... (the council) has repeatedly advised OPSEU that these types of demands simply can never be agreed to. ”
Ontario’s colleges have been hit hard by federal cuts to international students, who pay several times more in tuition, which schools had come to rely on to boost revenues.
They are also struggling with an ongoing tuition freeze and provincial funding they say has not kept up with their actual costs.
Christine Kelsey, who chairs the college support staff bargaining team, said before the strike deadline that “the landscape has changed dramatically since we started bargaining. We are trying to stabilize the system 鈥 not just for this term, but for generations to come.”
The full-time college support staffers represented by OPSEU hold a variety of jobs, including disability services, library technologists, trades, co-op placement co-ordinators, food services and IT.
About 10,000 jobs have been lost in the college sector over the past year alone, out of a total of about 60,000 staff and faculty.
Kelsey said the job losses are “causing chaos for students and communities.”
OPSEU, in an online update to members sent around dinnertime Wednesday, told members that in the event of a strike, it would stand up for “not just full-time support staff, but also part-time support staff, and faculty, who choose not to cross our picket lines” urging its members in other bargaining units to support the job action.
Some of Humber’s faculty seemed to take up this call to action Thursday, with the college’s faculty union president,聽Milos Vasic saying “only we, the workers in the college system, can save the system from itself” at Thursday’s press conference.
He later told the Star that聽faculty should avoid cancelling or moving classes online, to “embrace the chaos” so that students can see the picket line.
Along with some faculty members, OPSEU’s Hornick said unionized transit bus workers also agreed to show solidarity with the striking college staff by not driving on to campuses. (Buses still continued to drop students off on the sidewalk off-campus Thursday.)
The college council said its final proposal included a $145 million boost to wages and benefits 鈥 including a two per cent wage increase in each year of the contract 鈥 plus some job security guarantees tied to the use of new technology, and paid leave for members dealing with domestic and sexual violence.聽
It also improved severance payments for workers who are laid off.聽
A picketer crosses one of the intersections leading into the Humber College bus terminal. Earlier on Thursday, picketers completely blocked the intersections, preventing cars from entering.
Andrew Francis Wallace/色色啦 StarGiven the impasse, Lloyd said since the two聽sides “remain far apart on a number of important issues, we strongly encourage the union to agree to mediation, arbitration to help us reach an agreement.”
He said “the work that the employees, these support staff, do is extremely important. ”
Faculty, he added, are expected to report for work. They landed a three-year deal with the colleges following arbitration, a route the council is now urging the support staff union to consider.
Lloyd said the union demands around job guarantees “are not a pathway to a negotiated deal,” and that colleges “will go back to the table anytime, provided OPSEU bargains with a view to get an actual negotiated agreement, or mediation, arbitration.”
Along with its demands for the college council, OPSEU is also calling on the Ford government to stop diverting funds for public colleges toward private training companies 鈥 something the Ontario NDP echoed in a statement Thursday morning.
In an emailed statement to the Star, the province said it is making “record” investments into post-secondary education, including $2 billion in the past 18 months.
“As OPSEU is aware, our government has been there for, and will continue to be there, to support our public colleges and universities,” the province wrote.
To join the conversation set a first and last name in your user profile.
Sign in or register for free to join the Conversation