Strike averted as Ontario college faculty union, employers enter binding arbitration

The bargaining agent for Ontario's 24 public colleges and the union representing faculty have agreed to enter into binding arbitration, avoiding a strike.

The College Employer Council and the Ontario Public Services Employees Union met this week in Toronto for mediation following months of bargaining.

The union, which represents more than 15,000 faculty members across the province, had said some form of labour action could have begun on Thursday after it gave five days' notice last week.

It said Tuesday that "significant benefit gains" were agreed upon with the employers but that the sides otherwise remained at an impasse, with the outstanding items to be resolved by the arbitrator.

Key issues include work conditions, job security and quality of education.

The College Employer Council (CEC) says classes will continue as scheduled this week.

"It was important to us to provide stability to students at the start of their semester," Laurie Rancourt, chair of the CEC's bargaining team, said in a statement.

CEC CEO Graham Lloyd said Wednesday that many of the union's demands were unaffordable. He said colleges have to adjust to a large loss of revenue this year from international student caps.

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Post-secondary institutions say they are projected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars with new international student caps they warn jobs and student programs could be at risk if governments don’t boost funding.

Lloyd said union demands would increase annual college costs by $1 billion, and the CEC had been pushing for arbitration since October. 

"For us, that was the best way to avoid an unnecessary strike," he said. "It's reasonable. The issues in front of us are complex."

Sean Lougheed, a member of the union's bargaining team, said Wednesday that negotiations only reached a crisis point because of years of government neglect. 

"The province helped manufacture this crisis," Lougheed said, pointing to a 2021 auditor general's report that found Ontario colleges had become dependent on revenue from international student tuition fees.

"They've starved this sector for years, leaving students and faculty twisting in the wind," he said.