Bargaining has collapsed again… back to work legislation coming.
Today the governing liberals will be tabling legislation that will send this round of bargaining to binding arbitration. AS we await details of what is in that - including back to work protocols - there is one issue that needs to be clarified and it will serve us well to quote RM Kennedy about the allegations of the $5000 bonus that are being made.
"The team did in fact suggest that the prolonged two week forced vote was unnecessary and that Council needed to compensate members for the incredible work that will have to go into cleaning up the mess they created, especially our partial load colleagues who are completely being left out of the equation. This nonetheless was presented as negotiable, but Council clearly indicated that they were not willing to engage in negotiations of any kind, and were not even willing to remove any of their concessions even after the incredible results of our historic vote.
That Council is representing this as faculty wanting to "steal" money from the student hardship fund is truly reprehensible. It is an all-time low in a long battle where Council has sunk to many lows. They clearly want to union bust. They clearly want to divide students and faculty. They clearly would rather poison the environment than build any bridges. This last desperate act of theirs epitomizes everything we have been fighting against. And we will continue to fight it: at arbitration, in the media, and in education with our members.
The team is working on member communications today as well as return to work and political strategies."
Here is the first bit of news on that: https://news.ontario.ca/mol/en/2017/11/colleges-of-applied-arts-and-technology-labour-dispute-resolution-act-2017.html