Good afternoon. My name is Smokey Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
OPSEU represents more than 130,000 workers in the Ontario Public Service, the broader public service, hospital professionals and other agencies of the provincial government like the LCBO.
We also represent staff at Ontario community colleges, including those who provide support services at our colleges and academic staff. They are represented by two separate bargaining units.
As you likely know, contract negotiations are continuing between negotiators for college management and representatives of more than 8,000 of our members who work as support staff inside the colleges.
Thank you for attending this news conference. I’m joined at the table by Rod Bemister, chair of our bargaining team.
I called this news conference so that we can provide you with an update on the status of negotiations.
In less than 48 hours our support staff members will be in a legal position to withdraw their services. At 12:01 a.m. Thursday they could walk off the job, if we fail to reach a contract settlement.
This is a situation we haven’t witnessed in 32 years – the one and only time college support workers in Ontario took strike action against their employer.
Since that strike in 1979, we have successfully negotiated about 10 consecutive collective agreements with management without resorting to job action.
It’s an enviable record we would like to keep intact this year.
But that won’t be possible until negotiators for management get down to the serious business of negotiating a settlement before our contract expires tomorrow at midnight.
Let me provide you with a bit of background
Back on June 7 the two sides exchanged contract proposals.
Ours was a comprehensive document running to something like 60 or more pages.
It included proposals to defend and support decent, family-supporting jobs in the colleges and also to recognize the right of part-time staff, who are currently not unionized, to have their voices heard in the workplace.”
In return, management tabled a bare bones document that included concessions and claw backs that sought to strip away many of the achievements we had negotiated in previous rounds of bargaining.
The two sides then scheduled several dates when negotiations were supposed to have taken place.
We met on those occasions but, frankly, nothing was achieved, let alone settled upon.
Suddenly it was mid-August and management had nothing to offer but the same concessions and claw backs they first proposed in June.
All this time our side showed up at these so-called bargaining sessions ready to get down to the hard job of reaching a settlement, only to find out that management had nothing to offer but more concessions and more claw backs from our members.
Clearly this was unacceptable to our side.
Then, on August 23, management released its monetary package to us. Our bargaining team asked for a few days to look it over.
But instead of negotiating those terms with our bargaining team, management elected to release the monetary package directly to our members last Friday by email and by way of the news media.
I’ve been involved in the bargaining process for more than 30 and if there’s one lesson I’ve learned it’s this: negotiating through the media is no way to reach a settlement.
Notwithstanding this tactic by management, we returned to the table yesterday hoping progress on a new contract could be achieved.
The prognosis is not good. My negotiators tell me that management continues to drag its feet on many of the proposals our members put forward almost three months ago.
Some so-called ‘housekeeping’ items have been agreed upon, but not much beyond that.
At this rate, I’m not optimistic that a settlement can be reached by tomorrow’s deadline.
Let me be clear: we have no interest in withdrawing our services at community colleges.
As we are fond of saying, contracts are never settled on the picket line; they’re settled at the bargaining table.
But, unfortunately, management has given little indication they’re prepared to do the heavy lifting that’s required to reach a settlement.
That’s regrettable.
It’s regrettable because of the anxiety it is certain to cause students and their parents.
It’s regrettable because it may delay our community colleges from preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow.
And, it’s regrettable because it needn’t have come to this brinkmanship on the part of management.
Let me conclude my comments on this note.
Our members have adopted the slogan ‘Good Jobs Today … Good Jobs for Tomorrow’ to guide them through the bargaining process.
What that means is that while we have one eye on the nitty-gritty of negotiating a new deal for our 8,000 members today, we have our other eye focused on keeping good jobs for youth in the future.
If we cave in to the concessions and claw backs that management is putting forward in this round of bargaining, what does that say about the quality of employment for future graduates of Ontario’s community colleges – many of whom will find employment within the college system itself?
What management’s position on this round of bargaining says to me is that there will be even more part-time work, at lower wages and reduced benefits for future graduating classes.
Those are not the conditions under which we build a strong and prosperous province. It’s a benchmark too low for my liking.
As it already stands, more than half of those employed in community colleges are part-timers.
Is that the sort of Ontario we want to build? An economy where more and more of our graduating students have little more to look forward to than part-time, temporary and precarious employment with little in the way of job security or benefits?
So, yes, we now face a strike deadline of about 36 hours from now. We are bargaining hard to reach a deal before then.
But we are also bargaining for the jobs of tomorrow … for our students in post-secondary education today.
It’s in nobody’s interest that we give in to contract demands from management that will only harm the working conditions of future graduates.
Thank you for your attention. Rod and I would be pleased to take your questions
