Support staff at Ontario’s public colleges are officially on strike, walking off the job at midnight after their union failed to reach a new deal for its 10,000-plus members.
Workers represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union have been bargaining for a new deal from the College Employer Council, which negotiates on behalf of the province’s 24 publicly funded colleges, for months.
The union rejected an offer from the CEC on Wednesday, with hours to go until a strike. A statement from the union then suggested the CEC’s agents “walked away from the table” before the deadline to reach a deal arrived.
“We’ve lost 10,000 jobs across the system this year alone, and more than 650 programs in every community across the province,” Christine Kelsey, Chair of the College Support Full-Time Bargaining Team, said in a statement.
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“With our colleges plunged into chaos, job security is key to stabilizing the system – because the future of our work is the future of student support.”
The staff now on strike include library technologists, facilities and trades workers, and staff in financial aid and registrar offices
The CEC accused the union of including two demands it could not accommodate — a moratorium on campus mergers or closures and no reductions in the number of staff.
“The CEC enhanced its offer to the union bargaining team on September 9, while the union insisted on its ‘poison pill’ demands that make a deal impossible,” the group said in a statement just after midnight.
“At a time when college enrolments and revenues are down by as much as 50 per cent, OPSEU continues to insist on demands that are fiscally impossible.”
A recent arbitration decision reveals that at least 8,000 layoffs have taken place in less than two years, with some 600 college programs cancelled across the province. Several major college campuses have closed entirely.
The strike comes as Ontario’s 24 public colleges struggle through a perilous 18 months, following a federal cap on international students, which the provincial government applied particularly to colleges.
Ontario has frozen tuition fees for the past seven years and offered colleges a lower bailout than its own expert panel recommended in early 2024.
Since then, it has announced batches of funding in targeted areas like STEM courses, but the sector and its unions have both said the support falls well short of what is necessary.
— with a file from The Canadian Press
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