Nov 26th message from our Bargaining Team

Greetings faculty:

We have reviewed the College Employer Council team’s latest offers, including their proposal for Final Offer Selection arbitration, received through various email channels this week.

It is important to note that the faculty team offered Voluntary Binding Interest Arbitration - not Final Offer Selection, which we made clear in our presentation to the CEC on November 18. 

Final Offer Selection is when the arbitrator is only allowed to choose one side's offer or the other’s in its entirety. It allows no room for reasoned consideration around the serious issues surrounding each article. It allows no room for compromise, or for selecting the best proposals in each side’s offer. It chooses winners and losers, and therefore leads to toxic labour relations. 

Voluntary Binding Interest Arbitration is a very different process that examines every issue under debate within the collective agreement closely, with the arbitrator issuing a ruling on each.  

We are also extremely concerned that the CEC put this proposal to the public and members without having conversations at the table first. In other words, the CEC’s behaviour is the exact opposite of good-faith bargaining.

We have now received notice of the "No Board" report from the Ministry-appointed Conciliator, and have reviewed . As we endeavour to clarify and explore next steps with the CEC team, we continue to plan for the upcoming online strike mandate vote, confirmed to take place December 9, 10, and 11.  Detailed instructions will follow, as soon as we receive them from the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

We are also planning two provincewide information sessions for faculty:

• Tuesday December 7th from 6:30-8:00 pm:  A session specific to partial-load faculty
• Wednesday December 8th from 6:30-8:00 pm:  A session open to all faculty (including partial-load)

In the meantime, the team continues to be happy to attend Local General Membership Meetings and Information Sessions to address member questions and concerns.

In solidarity,

JP, Jonathan, Katie, Michelle, Ravi, Rebecca, Shawn