Workplace Blog

National Post: Teachers take strike to Toronto

Striking college teachers and students, who have been kept out of classes for nearly two weeks, will protest in Toronto today.
Faculty plan to rally in downtown Toronto (at Yonge and Dundas) and then march a few blocks to the Ministry of Colleges building.

Toronto Star: Teachers wary of minister’s invitation

Chris Bentley asks to meet with striking college teachers and college negotiators

The man who heads the bargaining team for 9,100 striking Ontario college teachers and faculty said he is “encouraged” by today’s invitation to meet tomorrow with the minister responsible for post-secondary education.

“Finally, we have somebody willing to listen,” Ted Montgomery shouted out to about 2,000 teachers at a noon-hour rally at Dundas Square in downtown Toronto. “I’m proud of you, but deeply saddened we have been driven to this,” he told them.

The invitation to meet came from Colleges and Universities Minister Chris Bentley, but the invitation was greeted skeptically by organizers of the rally.

The Globe and Mail: Students won’t lose year, colleges to promise

Ontario community colleges are set to promise students that they will not lose their academic year despite a strike by teachers, now in its second week. Newspaper advertisements tomorrow and Thursday will tell students that they will complete their winter semester, with management teaching classes if necessary.

The colleges will look at the transcripts of graduating students first to determine the essential work necessary to complete each course, said Rick Miner, president of the colleges’ committee of presidents and also president of Seneca College.

About 150,000 full-time and thousands more part-time students were shut out of classes last week after negotiations collapsed between the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and the province’s 24 community colleges. More than 9,000 teachers, librarians and counsellors are on strike, pushing for smaller class sizes and more full-time instructors. There are no talks scheduled between the two sides.

Toronto Sun: Students to air views at rallies

Whether through a placard-waving rally or by bringing teachers a coffee and a doughnut, local college students will be weighing in on the provincewide strike.

A group of local college students affected by the full-time faculty and librarians’ strike at Algonquin College have launched the Take Action Campaign to “have our voices heard and stand up to the teachers’ union.”

Reuters Canada: Late semester strike threatens Ontario students

A province-wide strike by Ontario’s community college teachers is threatening the academic year of more than 150,000 students in the province, a student association said on Monday. Tyler Charlebois of the College Students Alliance said the prospect of students losing the academic year is “quite real” because of the strike’s critical timing with less than two months left in the school year. “When you get into week three and four of a strike, that’s when you cut into time needed to cover remaining (course) material before April exams,” he said.

CTV: Union can’t guarantee students’ year: negotiator

A teachers’ union says it’s up to Ontario’s College Relations Commission to ensure a strike by 9,100 faculty doesn’t jeopardize the students’ year. Ontario Public Service Employees Union negotiator Ted Montgomery says teachers can’t promise students they won’t lose their year because of the week-old strike. Montgomery says it’s up to the commission, an independent body, to advise the government when the students’ year is in jeopardy.

OPSEU: Bad faith: OPSEU takes employer to the College Relations Commission

Union bargaining team chair Ted Montgomery made the announcement to a packed news conference this morning. On March 6, in the final hour of negotiations, having tabled nothing in five days of bargaining, the management bargaining team tabled a position at that crucial stage that was an offer that they knew could not lead and would not lead to a settlement. Its purpose was not to settle, not to move ahead, but rather to force and provoke the strike that weíre now on.

OPSEU strike information

Toronto Sun: College strike in deadlock

School’s still out today for 150,000 Ontario college students as their striking instructors enter day seven of a provincewide strike. The provincial association of colleges and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents 9,100 faculty members, are at loggerheads and no new negotiations are scheduled. “We’re still very disappointed that after a week with students not in the classroom, that neither side has made any movement toward putting themselves back at the table,” said Tyler Charlebois of the College Student Alliance, which represents 100,000 full-time students in Ontario.

London Free Press: College studies summer option

Fanshawe College may extend the school year into summer to make up lost time from a strike by staff, a college spokesperson said yesterday. A summer session is just one of the options being considered to ensure students do not lose their year, Emily Marcoccia said yesterday.

Toronto Star: Students may face weekend classes

Ontario college students, now losing classes because of a teachers’ strike, may be forced to go to school on Saturdays and Sundays to make up for lost time if the dispute drags on. Insisting all will be done to ensure more than 150,000 students complete their semester before summer, Ontario Public Service Employees Union bargaining chair Ted Montgomery said the term may be extended by a week, the exam period shortened and both days of the weekend used for classes. “I know that’s not comfortable for students and neither is it for faculty,” Montgomery told reporters at a news conference. “But I’m not suggesting, and I don’t understand the colleges to be suggesting, that there are plans to extend into summer.