Late last night, the Bargaining Team (BT) and OPSEU central released statements that a strike has been averted! Because of your actions getting ready for a possible strike and standing in clear solidarity with our BT, the CEC finally realized CAAT-A members were serious about the learning conditions-working conditions bond!
The “getting ready for a possible strike” preparations over the last week, especially Monday and Tuesday, on top of the historic super-majority 79% strike vote back in October 2024, meant that the BT was in the strongest possible position for the final mediation days. In short, the intense Jan. 6-7 mediation talks have resulted in a Memorandum of Agreement which will see Arbitrator Kaplan lead mediation-arbitration talks towards achieving a new Collective Agreement over the coming months.
In case you did not receive either of the messages from OPSEU central or the Bargaining Team, they are copied and pasted below.
In solidarity,
Your Local 415 Leadership Team
Tracy Henderson, President
Judy Puritt, First Vice-President
Martin Lee, Second Vice-President
Tara Ettinger, Lead Steward
Liz von Moos, Secretary
Saif Terai, Treasurer
Following progress at the table, Faculty agree to settle outstanding contract issues in mediation-arbitration
From January 6-7, your College Faculty bargaining team met with the College Employer Council (CEC) in non-binding mediation, in an effort to reach an agreement that protects faculty futures and safeguards quality education.
Today, the parties signed a Memorandum of Agreement, with significant benefit gains, particularly for our most precarious members. Using the leverage of a historic strike mandate, faculty were able to compel the CEC to withdraw significant concessions. The parties have agreed to send all outstanding items to mediation-arbitration with Arbitrator William Kaplan.
CAAT-A members have flexed our collective power in service of a better system. Back in October, nearly 80% of our members delivered a historic strike mandate – sending the strong message that faculty are prepared to strike to protect education. In the lead up to labour action, we began preparations to exercise that leverage.
Binding arbitration is a process workers can utilize to resolve outstanding items from negotiations in front of an arbitrator. As arbitration involves a third-party arbitrator weighing both parties’ proposals to rule on a final agreement, it was essential to the team that harmful concessions proposed by the employer that would erode our working conditions were off the table. Sufficient progress was made today on key priorities to clear the way towards a fair deal.
Our working conditions and students’ learning conditions are tied at the hip – and the CEC and the Colleges know that faculty are ready to stand up to protect both. As a result, we have seen more movement from the CEC in the past two (2) days than over the past six months.
Despite progress at the table, Arbitrator Kaplan concluded that we had reached an impasse – necessitating the decision to send all outstanding items to mediation-arbitration. As we have learned in previous rounds, we are bargaining with an unyielding employer prepared to sacrifice faculty and student futures to protect their corporate agenda.
At a time where students and workers are hurting from program and staffing cuts, what we’re seeing is the end game of the Ford government’s two-step agenda: starve our public colleges of public funds, and encourage reliance on price-gouged international tuition.
College executives were more than happy to go along with an agenda that exploits students and workers alike. Now that this house of cards is coming down, their contingency plan is austerity. Already in 2021, the Auditor General said that the Ford government knew well what was happening in our colleges – and that the province had no long term strategy.
The reality is that we need to fight on all fronts to save our colleges, not just at the bargaining table. Ontario remains dead last amongst the provinces for per-student funding. In the government’s own words, every $1 invested in post-secondary education has a $1.36 return for Ontario. Underfunding our colleges is against public interest — the social and economic drivers in our communities direly need investment, more than we need a new luxury spa in Toronto.
Our sector’s stability is dependent on an overhauled funding model that treats our colleges like the public asset they are, not a cash-grab or a political pawn in federal immigration debates. Ontario’s colleges have a clear public mandate: to prepare students for their future, and to guarantee the economic health of our province. We are the teachers, librarians, and counsellors that bring students’ learning to life.
Our employer, and provincial government, have demonstrated time and time again that they are ready to act against public interests. And time after time, workers will be the force that holds them to account.
Solidarity,
Your CAAT-A bargaining team:
Ravi Ramkissoonsingh, Local 242, Chair (he/him)
Michelle Arbour, Local 125, Acting Chair (she/her)
Chad Croteau, Local 110 (he/him)
Bob Delaney, Local 237 (he/him)
Martin Lee, Local 415 (he/him)
Sean Lougheed, Local 657 (he/him)
Rebecca Ward, Local 732 (she/her)
College strike narrowly averted, faculty turn focus to root causes: “Ford is gambling away Ontario’s future.”
TORONTO, ON – After more than six months of negotiations, the bargaining team representing over 15,000 college faculty across Ontario signed a Memorandum of Agreement today with significant benefit gains – particularly for their most precarious members, making 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.
“Faculty working conditions are student learning conditions, and with a historic strike mandate and province-wide organizing, faculty sent the clear message that we’re ready to stand up to protect both,” said Ravi Ramkissoonsingh, Chair of the faculty bargaining team.
OPSEU/SEFPO, the union representing college faculty, and the College Employer Council (CEC), the bargaining agent for Ontario’s 24 public colleges, met in downtown Toronto on January 6 and 7 in mediation. A new contract for college faculty will be ruled on at a further date by Arbitrator William Kaplan.
As cuts to programming and frontline staff are announced at college after college on the coattails of federal restrictions to international student visas, the union says that faculty’s fight to save the colleges 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 JP Hornick, President of OPSEU/SEFPO. “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 who will never step foot in the classroom, or vanity projects to attract investors.”
In the prelude to an anticipated provincial election, all eyes are on Doug Ford for his starring role in manufacturing the crisis in our colleges. A 2021 report by the Auditor General determined that the Ministry of Colleges and Universities had “not developed a strategic plan for the sector to help mitigate the risk of a sudden decline in international students and the impact it could have on the college sector, students and government.”
“This is the end game of Ford’s two-step agenda: starve our public colleges of public funds and engineer a dependency on revenues from international students, who are faced with price-gouged tuition rates and Ontario’s affordability crisis on arrival,” pointed out Hornick. “And when the plan goes belly-up, get workers and students to eat the cost.” “The same government that proudly declares that every $1 invested in post-secondary education has a $1.36 return for Ontarians, has put Ontario dead last amongst the provinces for per-student funding,” added Hornick. “It’s not just illogical, it’s irresponsible – Ford is gambling away Ontario’s future. It’s time we bet on a better future for our colleges; one that’s not rigged against students from the outset.”