Cambrian College faculty union president hopeful a strike can be avoided on Jan. 4
Neil Shyminsky says labour dispute comes down to ‘chronic underfunding’ from the province
Faculty at Ontario colleges will be in a legal strike position as of Jan. 4, but the president of Cambrian College's faculty union says he hopes it doesn't come to that.
"I'm always hopeful. I don't know if my hope is always realistic, but because I'm an optimist I want to believe that we can work something out," said Neil Shyminsky, the president of OPSEU Local 655.
Shyminsky said negotiations with the College Employer Council started in July.
"This has been building for years. We've had several incredibly contentious rounds. Now we've gone to arbitration to settle our last two rounds of bargaining," he said.
In an update, the College Employer Council said mediation with the faculty union is scheduled for Jan. 6 and 7.
"While the union will be in a legal strike position, there remains the possibility for mediation to continue or alternative forms of negotiations such as binding arbitration to occur," the update said.
Shyminsky said the biggest issues facing college faculty are due to "chronic underfunding" of the sector from the provincial government, especially when compared to other provinces.
"Ontario has been the most poorly funded post-secondary education system in the country," he said.
He said that underfunding made Ontario colleges more reliant on international students for revenue, but new caps on international students from the federal government will affect their finances.
When he started at Cambrian, Shyminsky said there were 200 full-time faculty members for 4,000 students.
Now the college has 6,000 students, but only 180 full-time faculty members.
"This is true across the province," he said.
"Enrolments go up and somehow the number of full-time faculty just continues to drop and are being replaced increasingly with part-time people who may be gone in two months, who are much more poorly paid, who they don't have to worry about establishing pensions for, who have much worse benefits than I do."
$1.3B in one-time funding
In an email to CBC News, Dayna Smockum, a spokesperson for Ontario's Ministry of Colleges and Universities said funding for post-secondary institutions in the province is higher than it's ever been.
"Earlier this year we provided $1.3 billion to stabilize the sector — the single biggest investment increase in over a decade," Smockum said.
"That is on top of the more than $5 billion in operating funding we put into the sector every year so our schools can continue to deliver for our students. However, we will not put additional costs on the backs of students and families by raising tuition."
Smockum added that the ministry is not a party in the ongoing labour negotiations, but is monitoring the situation closely and remains "hopeful that both parties reach a fair deal that puts students first and keeps them in class."