A tentative agreement has been reached between the union representing more than 10-thousand full-time college support staff and Ontario’s 24 colleges including Cambrian College, which has a main campus in Sudbury, and satellite campuses in Espanola and Little Current.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union says the picket lines will come down today (Wednesday) — nearly five weeks after the strike began.
Details of the tentative settlement will be presented to union members this afternoon.
Officials say support staff are scheduled to return to work tomorrow (Thursday).
“After months of intensive negotiations with an incredibly difficult employer, the gains made in this agreement would not have been possible without members holding strong these last weeks,” says Christine Kelsey, chair of the union’s bargaining team.
“We had no choice but to fight back amidst a plan to privatize public education, as well as 10,000 job losses and over 650 program cuts across the system.”
Support staff are scheduled to return to work Thursday, October 16.
“Full-time college support staff took on a tremendous fight, and I’m incredibly proud of our members for getting us to this moment,” says JP Hornick, President of OPSEU/SEFPO.
“Now, we need to keep building on that momentum and show Ontario what is possible when working people stand together.”
“We’ve won more than a contract,” adds Kelsey. “After being out in our communities, day after day, the public now understands that our college system is being deliberately defunded as part of the collateral of Ford’s devastating privatization agenda.”
Corporate college audits, commissioned by the Ford government at a cost of $15 million, paint an alarming vision for Ontario’s colleges – including plans for further cutbacks, automation, outsourcing, and mergers.
OPSEU/SEFPO was early to sound the alarm over the Ford government’s misuse of the Skills Development Fund (SDF) for multi-million-dollar corporate handouts, including to companies delivering private, low-quality training without measurable outcomes. It’s money, the union says, that could keep college campuses, services, and programs open and staffed.
In fact, nearly half a billion dollars went to lower ranked applicants – by the union’s projections, enough to have prevented college cuts to programs and staff for over a year while the system adjusted to international student drop-offs and stabilized.
OPSEU/SEFPO represents more than 50,000 college workers, including full-time and part-time support staff and faculty, at all 24 Ontario public colleges, with campuses in more than 200 communities.
