Workplace Blog

Mountain News: On Strike

Mohawk college teachers part of province-wide walkout that has shut down community college system. A year ago they would have been studying for final exams and looking forward to the end of another school year. But for some 150,000 community college students across Ontario, including about 9,500 full-time students at Mohawk College, the final six weeks was put on hold earlier this week when about 9,000 full-time teachers, counsellors and librarians at the province’s 22 community colleges went on strike.

insidetoronto.ca:
College strike puts the pinch on students

It’s a case of no more teachers and no more books for college students across Ontario, as the teacher strike has cancelled all classes.

Students fear worst in colleges strike

Students are frustrated by the Ontario college teacher’s strike and are concerned their school year might be in jeopardy.

Brampton Guardian: Students are victims of strike

It’s always such a shock when teachers go on strike. We know it shouldn’t be. The teacher’s union is just another group that collectively bargains and tries to get the best deal possible for its members.

CNW Telbec: College students need to know: why is OPSEU disrupting their year?

Ontario colleges have launched a newspaper ad campaign today to ask the question that college students and parents want to know: why is OPSEU disrupting the school year?

Following last fall’s BC teachers’ strike a number of departments and programs at UBC, along with the New Proposals Publishing Society and <a href=”http://www.cust.educ.ubc.ca/workplace/”Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor sponsored a public roundtable discussion on the significance of the strike and the struggle for education in the public interest in British Columbia.

Streaming video of the presentations at the roundtable are now available via Charles Menzie’s In Support of Public Education blog or you can click on any of the presenters names below to access the video:

Stephen Petrina (Department of Curriculum Studies, UBC)
Jinny Sims (President British Columbia Teachers’ Federation)
Catherine Evans (BC Society for Public Education)
Paul Orlowski (Teacher, Kitsilano Secondary School, Vancouver)
Charles Menzies (Department of Anthropology & Sociology, UBC)
Kevin Millsip (former Vancouver School Board Trustee)
E. Wayne Ross (Department of Curriculum Studies, UBC)

CUPE Local 2278 (TAs, tutors and markers) has published on their website the results of their strike vote they conducted on February 27 and 28: “The vote was 80% in favour, with 750 votes cast”.

The University of British Columbia brought an application to the Labour Relations Board to challenge the TA strike vote as invalid, claiming it was not obtained in accordance with the Labour Relations Code.

The Ubyssey: TA strike vote passes—No job action without membership consultation, says TA union

Teaching assistants fired a warning shot at the University last week when they voted to authorise their union, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 2278, to initiate a strike.

Although the vote means the union can now legally serve the University with a strike notice, according to Sarah Roberts, chair of the bargaining committee for CUPE local 2278, union protocols require them to go back to the membership before job action can actually occur.

“What this vote means…is that we want to send a message to the University that our members support us at the bargaining table,” she said.

The result of the strike vote was 80 per cent in favour of a strike, with a voter turnout of 45 per cent.
Teaching assistants at UBC have been without a contract since August 31 and are currently in negotiations with the University. The lack of progress made was the driving force behind the vote, explained Roberts.

“That’s our real hang-up, that our negotiations aren’t moving forward,” she said.

Roberts claimed that if the University doesn’t offer graduate students enough money to be teaching assistants, it might translate into top students not wanting to come to UBC. This will have negative consequences towards research and teaching at the University, she added.

“As students we are concerned about the education this University is offering…but at this point it’s becoming an unworkable environment here,” said Roberts. “All levels of the University are starting to suffer by our inability to recruit good graduate students.”

UBC Director of Public Affairs Scott Macrae said that contract negotiations with the union are ongoing and didn’t want to comment on specifics.

“Those discussions really remain at the table at this point,” he said.

According to Macrae, the union and UBC are set to meet today for contract deliberations.

“As long as people are talking there’s always the mutual hope that they’ll get to a satisfactory conclusion,” he commented, adding, “We’re still talking.”

Teaching assistants went on strike in early 2003 but were legislated back to work by the provincial government on March 12 of that year.

Roberts said she was optimistic that a contract can be agreed upon and a strike avoided.

“The last thing anyone wants to do is go on strike,” she said. “I really hope it doesn’t come to that.”

ABC Newsonline: ACT teachers urged to consider NSW pay package

ACT Education Minister Katy Gallagher has urged teachers to consider an offer to have the same pay and conditions as New South Wales teachers before next week’s planned industrial action.

The strike was called when the Government offered teachers a 9 per cent pay increase over three years when teachers have been seeking 12 per cent.

Ms Gallagher says the offer would deliver the pay rise the teachers are seeking but would require secondary teachers to work face to face in the class room from two extra hours a week.

She says she will put the offer in writing to the Australian Education Union (AEU) today but the strike will have to be called off before talks can proceed.

Bexley Times: University lecturers strike for 25 per cent wage hike

DOZENS of university lecturers took part in strike action over low pay this week demanding a wage hike of 25 per cent.

Angry staff at the University of Greenwich set up picket lines at its three campuses – at Greenwich, Avery Hill in New Eltham, and the Medway – throughout Tuesday.

CTV: College teacher strike enters day two

It could be a long and drawn out battle between college professors and the institutions they work for, with Ontario students paying the price for the ongoing labour dispute.

On Wednesday, Ontario professors entered their second day on the picket lines, with both sides of the dispute acknowledging it could be some time before an agreement is reached.

Toronto Sun: Prez urges more cash

THE ANSWER TO Algonquin College’s labour strife rests with the province, says college president Robert Gillett. In a move that could force the summer semester’s cancellation, 9,100 instructor, librarian and counsellor members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union from 24 colleges across the province walked off the job yesterday over workload demands.

Sentinel Review: College teachers on strike

The province’s college professors are calling it a matter of “education quality,” but regardless of the issue, students won’t be in the classroom until an agreement is reached.
As of midnight Tuesday, 9,100 instructors – members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union – walked off the job after talks broke down between union negotiators and the College Compensation and Appointments Council. At the Oxford campus of Fanshawe College, there are only six faculty members involved in the action, but the satellite campus is still effectively shut down for the duration of the strike.

“All post-secondary activity has been suspended,” said Sherri Knott, the principal of the Oxford campus.

Because of the strike, the satellite’s roughly 30 part-time instructors have been laid off until a resolution can be reached between the union and college management. Knott indicated that “nothing had been established” to deal with the strike’s potential impact to the academic year. Knott, though, reassured the campus’s almost 300 students their year was likely not in jeopardy

Perry Sound North Star: College students locked out

One teacher is on strike and about 25 students are locked out of class at Canadore College’s Parry Sound campus following a breakdown in talks between the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) and the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Monday.

The strike is affecting 25 students here in two classes, including 15 from the Academic Skills Development class, and 10 within the Welder/Fitter Program, which is run out of Parry Sound High School. While the program’s teacher is not a part of this particular strike action, the school has decided to shut down the program. They are concerned that students not be disrupted should a picket line be formed there.

Toronto Star: One professor

Ray Holmes has traded in his wrenches for a picket sign, abandoning his Centennial College classroom to join in the first strike of his 15-year teaching career.

He does not want to do it. He feels he must.

“Everybody is frustrated,” Holmes, 48, said last night. “Something has to be done.”

Holmes, the co-ordinator/professor of the Acura/Honda automotive apprenticeship program at Centennial’s Ashtonbee campus in Scarborough, is one of 9,100 full-time college faculty who walked off the job yesterday in a dispute over workload and class sizes.

With a class full of students completing their fourth and final eight-week course on their way to becoming qualified mechanics, Holmes is well aware that the strike could have a huge impact on his pupils. But he feels it’s a fight that will ultimately benefit those who come after them.