the last faculty strike was a costly one for algonquin.
the five-week strike in the fall of 2017 affected about 500,000 ontario college students. the province legislated faculty back to work and later said students who withdrew could apply for full tuition refunds.
algonquin saved about $8.2 million in unpaid salaries, but that was more than offset by extra expenses and lost revenue. the college ended up spending an extra $6.7 million
algonquin declined a request to comment about possible labour disruptions, deferring to cec.
“opseu’s demands represent vast reductions in classroom teaching time, and a maximum of 29 weeks of available teaching time in a year,” cec said in a release.
“opseu’s last offer of settlement amounts to more than $1 billion in new annual costs which represents an increase of more than 55 per cent of total academic costs to the colleges.”
opseu’s henderson said job security was a top priority for the union. about half of local 415 members at algonquin have precarious employment, working contract to contract, semester by semester, she said.
“those people are only paid for the hours they are in front of the class — there is no recognition of the grading or preparation work being done by those contract members.”
the workload formula has not been updated since 1984, before email was created, let alone student accommodations, online learning, or artificial intelligence, henderson said.
“the majority of our members are working well over the 40 hour work-week with that outdated 1984 workload formula. these are not conditions we would tolerate for our students, and we won’t tolerate them for ourselves either.”
the cec initially proposed interest arbitration and continues to urge the academic bargaining team to agree, lloyd said.
“the cec remains committed to finding a solution without interrupting students learning. we urge opseu to reconsider their approach in favour of an outcome that is fair and sustainable for everyone.”
in the meantime, colleges are contingency planning should opseu continue to choose to escalate, lloyd said.
“a strike at ontario’s colleges is wholly unnecessary and causes uncertainty, and disruption for students and faculty in a time of financial instability.”
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