An Ontario college cancelled all in-person classes and activities on one of its campuses Tuesday, as striking support staff continue to hold rallies at several colleges across the province.
Conestoga College said its Doon campus in Kitchener, Ont., was also closed to all vehicle traffic.
The college said that was because of “large-scale” picketing activity — part of a co-ordinated campaign by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents 10,000 full-time college support staff who have been on strike since Sept. 11.
Striking workers from across the Greater Toronto Area also rallied at Centennial College’s Progress campus in Toronto on Monday.
Similar co-ordinated actions took place across Ontario last week and saw Mohawk College in Hamilton and St. Clair College in Windsor, Ont., suspend in-person classes and activities at some campuses.
OPSEU said job security remains a critical concern amid campus closures and layoffs in the college sector.
It said workers currently have no protections against job elimination.
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“Already, 10,000 staff and faculty have been laid off this year, and college presidents want full licence to continue their destructive path of program closures and elimination of entire services,” bargaining chair Christine Kelsey said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Our students and our communities will suffer if we let this happen.”
She said support staff want to get back to their jobs.
“We’re calling on the employer to return to the table and actually settle a contract that addresses our concerns about job security and ensures students continue to receive the quality of education and supports they deserve,” she said.
College Employer Council CEO Graham Lloyd said the union presented two ultimatums last week.
They included stipulations that only support staff can do support staff work, and that colleges would not be permitted to enter into contracting for any type of service without union permission, regardless of impact on jobs.
“We sent a comprehensive proposal to them. And asked them to share it with all of their members. And they’ve, we believe they refused to do so,” he said in an interview.
“It rests that they don’t want to bargain unless we agree to those, to one of the two ultimatums. And we’re prepared to have them discuss the proposal if they drop those ultimatums. We can’t bargain with ultimatums.”
The council, which represents Ontario’s 24 publicly funded colleges, said last week it was frustrated after the union’s bargaining team “abruptly reversed course during mediation talks, derailing progress.”
The council has said it offered improvements to wages, on-call pay and bereavement leave, among other things.
Colleges in Ontario have been increasingly relying on tuition from international students due to low levels of provincial government funding and a years-long tuition freeze. They have been struggling since the federal government enacted a lower cap on international students early last year.
The College Employer Council has stated that the union’s demands would expose colleges to more than $900 million in additional costs, although the union disputes that figure.
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