The College Employer Council and the Ontario Public Services Employees Union have reached an agreement to enter binding interest arbitration and the strike that was scheduled to commence at 12:01 am on March 18, 2022, has been called off. This also includes all work-to-rule strike activities.
"We are pleased to advise that after 12 hours at the bargaining table, the parties have agreed to unconditional interest arbitration on both parties' outstanding issues. Hearing dates mutually convenient to the parties will be scheduled soon,” said Dr. Laurie Rancourt, Chair of the Management bargaining team. “We remain committed to putting students and their education first".
College programs will continue normal operations and program delivery.
"In order to avoid any disruption to students, we were prepared to proceed, immediately and unconditionally, to binding interest arbitration...on all of the outstanding issues," said Graham Lloyd, CEO of the CEC. "After all that students, faculty and the College community have been through over the past two years, we felt it was essential that we put our differences aside and conclude these negotiations without a strike."
The College Employer Council (CEC) is the government-mandated bargaining agent for the 24 Ontario publicly-funded Colleges in negotiating Collective Agreements with unionized staff. In addition, the CEC provides a variety of services for the College system such as advice and guidance on human resource issues, Collective Agreement administration, research, and is the policyholder for group benefits.