The top of an area union that represents school, librarians and counsellors at Fanshawe Faculty says he is hopeful there’s nonetheless a path to avoiding a strike whereas securing key victories for his members.
These sentiments come as The Ontario Public Service Staff Union (OPSEU) inches towards being in a authorized strike place on Jan. 4, though the five-day discover legally required by the union earlier than job motion can start has not been given.
“The actually huge difficulty is the workload points [the employer council is] refusing to handle.” stated Mark Feltham, the president of OPSEU Native 110. “I am hoping mediation subsequent week will create some motion, however we’re simply going to have to attend and see.”
Whereas a number of varieties of staff at Ontario’s 24 publicly-assisted schools are represented by OPSEU, the universities themselves are represented by the Faculty Employer Council. Nevertheless, the most recent spherical of bargaining hasn’t resulted in a lot progress, the union’s provincial officers stated in late December.
Final time school staff represented by OPSEU went on strike in 2017, lessons have been paused for greater than a month earlier than the strike was ended by laws by then-premier Kathleen Wynne.
In keeping with Feltham, quite a lot of points are at hand, however the primary ones dwarf the remainder.
For example, he stated, “there’s most likely room to come back collectively” for either side, which stay aside on pay will increase.
As an alternative, Feltham expects to see a concentrate on workload on the bargaining desk. He beforehand advised workloads for all members of his union have climbed and developed considerably within the period of on-line and hybrid education.
“They declare they’re addressing [workload concerns], however they’re not likely invested. Their proposals have truly made our workload formulation worse. They’re representing this as a breakthrough, and it is a breakthrough within the flawed route,” he stated.
Feltham additionally stated the employers have proposed concessions that, within the union’s opinion, would weaken its place within the face of potential layoffs.
The potential for layoffs are an enormous concern, following the federal authorities’s cap on worldwide pupil admissions put in place in response to housing shortages and excessive rents. In 2023 and 2024, Fanshawe had the third-highest variety of worldwide college students — roughly 11,700 — amongst Canadian post-secondary establishments.
This yr, that quantity is ready to drop by roughly 47 per cent, based on an inside e mail obtained by final October.
That e mail warned that the drop would impression the variety of lessons supplied in every program.
“The staffing decline is hitting first with the contract school. We have truly seen a number of contract school have hours diminished for the winter already. That is simply an illustration of the precarious circumstances that these school discover themselves in,” stated Feltham.
In an announcement, Fanshawe Faculty stated it has issued one-time suspensions for 18 winter semester program intakes, a call “influenced by a mix of things, together with declining worldwide enrollment.”
Non-full-time school members who taught in these packages have been notified, and their instructing contracts weren’t renewed, the assertion stated. The faculty could not say precisely what number of school members have been impacted.
Feltham added, he believes the province is accountable for the precarious fiscal scenario many schools have discovered them in.
“The basis explanation for all of that is the Ontario authorities’s unwillingness to offer funding to have a sustainable, correctly funded school system.”
In its assertion, the faculty stated it had not acquired any provincial cash to offset misplaced income from having decrease worldwide enrollment, nonetheless, an enterprise-wide evaluation to search out alternatives to search out efficiencies has been paid for by the province.
