College Deal Rejected

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Last updated: Sunday November 19th, 12:53pm

Hours after the College faculty voted to reject the latest deal from the College Employer Council by 86% the Ontario government announced they will introducing legislation that would end the labour dispute and return Ontario college students to the classroom.

This comes after no agreement was reached in an afternoon joint meeting between both sides, the Premier and Advanced Education Minister Deb Matthews.

“One of those parties, the College Employer Council, refused to accept that their approach to bargaining had failed, and refused to do anything to get our students back to class,” said JP Hornick, chair of the OPSEU college faculty bargaining team.

Hornick adds that the Council refused to remove the “poison pills” in its offer and made no move toward a settlement, even when faculty offered to send a key item, academic freedom, to arbitration.

If passed, the legislation would require the current strike at Ontario’s colleges to be terminated, and prevent any additional strikes or lock-outs arising from the dispute until a new collective agreement is signed. Striking college workers would be required to return to their jobs.

All outstanding issues would be referred to binding mediation-arbitration. The College Employer Council and OPSEU would have five days to agree on a mediator-arbitrator, or one would be appointed by the Minister of Labour.