After two days of mediation, the union and the colleges have agreed to mediation-arbitration to be concluded by the end of June.
Ontario’s 24 colleges, including Algonquin and La Cité in Ottawa, have averted a strike.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), which represents the full-time and partial-load professors, instructors and librarians, and the College Employers Council (CEC), the bargaining agent for the province’s colleges, have agreed to mediation-arbitration to be completed by the end of June.
That means there can be no work stoppage this term, said Graham Lloyd, the CEC’s CEO on Wednesday morning. Some issues will be settled through mediation, with outstanding issues to be settled though binding arbitration, he said.
“We are very pleased that OPSEU has agreed to binding arbitration.”
OPSEU, which represents full-time and partial-load professors, instructors and librarians, gave notice Friday that a province-wide strike could begin Thursday. On Dec. 12, the union requested a no-board report after more than five months of bargaining.
Representatives for the union, which represents over 15,000 college faculty across Ontario met with the CEC in Toronto on Monday and Tuesday.
OPSEU said in a statement late Tuesday night that it has signed a memorandum of agreement with “significant benefit gains” particularly for their “most precarious” members, which make up 75 per cent of the workforce.
“While the two sides otherwise remain at an impasse, the parties have agreed to send all outstanding items to mediation-arbitration. As a result, Ontario’s 24 public colleges will narrowly avoid a strike this term.”
Evening Update
Colleges have become increasingly dependent on international students in the face of declining numbers of domestic students.
The financial health of the province’s colleges has been tenuous as post-secondary institutions faced a sharp drop in revenue from international students after the federal government announced it was setting an intake cap on international student permit applications for two years.
In August, the Ontario government announced it was suspending all new college international activities, pending a review of entrepreneurial activities. Some colleges have already announced cuts to programs and staff, and more are anticipated.
In November, Sheridan College, which has three Toronto-area campuses, announced it was suspending 40 programs and conducting a comprehensive review of another 27 programs, citing a drop of 30 per cent of students in the coming years.
Fleming College in Peterborough cut 29 programs starting last September. Mohawk College in Hamilton cut its administrative workforce by approximately 20 per cent, or 65 positions.
Lloyd said further announcements are expected in the coming month as colleges head into the start of a new fiscal year on April 1.
Colleges face $1.7 billion in losses over the next two years, according to the CEC. That figure is based on a 60 per cent cut to international student enrolment, based on figures from Colleges Ontario that have been shared with the provincial government, said Lloyd.
OPSEU said the fight isn’t over — and it won’t be limited to the bargaining table.
“College students are reduced to walking dollar signs for the same reason that 75 per cent of faculty are precarious, working contract-to-contract,” said OPSEU president JP Hornick.
“It’s a corporate model of education that funnels student tuition away from their education and towards the ballooning salaries of ever-multiplying college administrators that will never step foot in the classroom, or vanity projects to attract investors.”
A five-week faculty strike in the fall of 2017 affected about 500,000 Ontario college students. The Liberal provincial government of the day legislated faculty back to work and later said students who withdrew could apply for full tuition refunds.
