As you may know, over 16,000 college faculty across Ontario have been engaged in a legal strike action called Work to Rule since December 18, 2021. For three months now, we have gradually escalated this action in an effort to get the College Employer Council (CEC) to negotiate a deal or agree to binding interest arbitration. As of today, the CEC is still unwilling to budge. We need this to change.
Our Bargaining Team has announced that if the CEC does not agree to interest arbitration by Friday, March 18 at 12:01 a.m., faculty will stop all work and begin picketing. It is not the decision we wanted to make, but we hope it gives us all a path forward to finishing the winter term. This week, we need you to tell President Kardas and the CEC to resolve this dispute with arbitration and save your semester. Binding interest arbitration is not a win for faculty. It’s not a win for College Presidents. It’s a win for you – the students.
For a detailed explanation, please read this letter – Letter to Students: What are we fighting for.
How Students Can Help
- Write to President Rob Kardas, and ask him to do his job and resolve this.
- Write to your MPP and make them understand that they need to step in and resolve
this. - Follow us on Twitter @opseu125 and re-tweet our messages!
- Let your professors know you support them. The stronger the strike is (with everybody participating), the shorter it will be. Come to our rallies. Join the picket lines and walk with us for a bit. Students are always welcome where faculty gather.
