College students fret as strike looms
January 8, 2010
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Louise Brown
EDUCATION REPORTER
As nearly half a million community college students return to class Monday across Ontario, fear of a teachers' strike has prompted plans for a province-wide student walkout Tuesday, and moved a group of professors to take the unusual step of launching a website that openly urges colleagues to vote No to job action.
Upset that colleges imposed a new contract last fall when bargaining faltered – a right colleges won in 2008 – the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union will hold a strike vote Wednesday across all 24 colleges and could walk off the job by early February, said union spokesman Ted Montgomery, whose members teach more than 150,000 full-time and about 300,000 part-time students.
It would be the second college strike in four years. A strike in March 2006 cancelled classes for three weeks.
"We don't want a strike – and I don't blame students for not wanting one either – but we have a responsibility to ensure the quality of education for the students yet to come," said Montgomery, chair of the negotiating team for about 7,000 full-time faculty and 3,000 part-timers. Stumbling blocks include workload and academic freedom.
"If the strike vote passes, we would be in a legal strike position Jan. 18, but we're looking at a strike date about a month after the vote to give college presidents a chance to change their minds."
While colleges have imposed a new contract for now, they say they are still eager to hammer out a deal with the union to avoid a strike.
A Facebook group of 18,500 students against a strike has collected more than 3,000 names on a petition that founder Graeme McNaughton, a Humber college student, wants students to present to college and union officials during a one-hour walkout Tuesday at noon.
"We want to make a show of force before the strike vote so both sides will take into consideration that students out there are very concerned about their academic year," he said.
Bill Tennant is a business professor at Kingston's St. Lawrence College, where several colleagues created www.stopthestrike.net website, which argues a strike is not in the best interest of students.
"In 28 years, my working conditions have improved, not got worse. I feel like a spoiled child because I haven't experienced the kinds of things the union is complaining about either with academic freedom or increased workload," said Tennant.
"If we're striking just because we're angry that colleges imposed a new contract – using legislation that's legal – we'd look pretty silly."
A strike also would affect the more than 3,000 students in Ontario's new Second Career program, which pays to send laid-off workers back to school to learn a new occupation for which there are job openings.
Toronto Star