Faculty voted to reject a final collective agreement offer from Ontario’s 24 public colleges, results released on Friday revealed, escalating tensions between the two sides and increasing the potential for disruptive labour action.
The professors, counsellors and librarians part of the Ontario Public Sector Employees Union have been engaged in an intense bargaining process with college leaders represented by the College Employer Council since last summer.
“Faculty voted 62 per cent to reject the CEC offer, a clear message that their offer did not adequately address faculty concerns,” OPSEU faculty bargaining chair J.P. Hornick told Humber News.
“We invite the CEC team to either return and negotiate faculty’s proposals, or agree to go to voluntary binding interest arbitration,” Hornick said, avoiding mention of a faculty strike.
Only 66 per cent of faculty voted.
“We are disappointed that academic employees have rejected the employer final offer,” CEC bargaining chair Dr. Laurie Rancourt said in a statement.
Employer council CEO Graham Lloyd denied OPSEU’s request to enter binding arbitration. “It is not the answer to concluding negotiations,” Lloyd said.
“The parties have the responsibility to bargain and negotiate a settlement that both parties can live with.”
The forced vote was triggered by the CEC as part of an effort to circumnavigate faculty union leaders.
Faculty at Humber College were stronger in their rejection, with 69 per cent voting against the CEC’s offer, Humber’s union president Milos Vasic told Humber News.
With a global pandemic, online classes and the ongoing bargaining dispute, students are tired of their college experience.
“I just want to finish my semester so I don’t have to worry about strike or school anymore,” Chantel Oziel, a second-year bakery management student, told Humber News.
“It’s a joke now,” she added.
Humber’s Vasic previously told Humber News that faculty will “not escalate to a full-on strike” should the faculty vote against the CEC’s final offer.
The two sides haven’t held talks since a form of mediated bargaining known as conciliation fell apart on Nov. 18 when the employer council left the table.
Humber College faculty joined their peers at all 24 public colleges in a work-to-rule labour action at the end of last semester.
Work-to-rule means professors strictly follow the exact terms of their employment contracts.
Faculty triggered the work-to-rule campaign after the CEC imposed “terms and conditions,” a legal tactic that allows the colleges to adjust faculty contracts.
College faculty last voted in favour of the CEC’s final offer in 2010.
In 2017, 86 per cent of faculty voted against the employer’s final offer, triggering a strike that lasted a record-breaking five weeks before the then Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne legislated an end to the strike.