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Bargaining Bulletin 20

Following concerted efforts to see movement at the table on Tuesday, we signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to enter mediation-arbitration with the College Employer Counter (CEC) – in the process, securing improved benefit gains for full-time members and breakthrough benefit gains for partial-load. In addition, we cleared significant concessions from the table.

Read the full MOA here.

Gains at the table were only made possible through faculty organizing on the ground, across the province. We saw more movement in two days than the past six months combined. 

It was your work, day in and day out, flexing our collective power to exercise a historic strike mandate – with locals hauling strike trailers and portapotties to campuses across Ontario – that successfully compelled the CEC to remove several concessions.

Recognizing that many of you have questions about the details of what took place Tuesday, and the road to our decision to enter mediation-arbitration, we’re breaking down the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) and answering member questions:

What is contained in the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA)?

The MOA outlines the terms that the parties agreed to during the mediation process. Contained within the document is Mediator Kaplan’s determination of an impasse, with “no likely prospect that the Parties would successfully reach agreement on the terms of a renewal Collective Agreement.” The document enshrines:

• The agreement to enter mediation-arbitration, appointing William Kaplan as mediator/arbitrator, and that this process be completed prior to the end of June 30th, 2025;
• The CEC’s withdrawal of proposals related to significant concessions, including:
  • Extending the academic year from 10 months to 12 months;
  • Increasing maximum teaching contact hours per week and per year, and max teaching contact days/year, for non-post-secondary (two-tiering);
  • Allowing new hires to be scheduled for more than 8 hours of work in a single day (two tiering); 
  • Allowing for the assignment of additional sections without faculty’s consent if workload hours fall under 35 hours/week;
  • Creating new barriers for faculty to access professional development (PD) (e.g. removing guarantee of our five consecutive PD days, and requiring 30 days notice for any consecutive PD days);
  • Restricting release time for bargaining, and withholding salary from faculty released for bargaining.
• The enhancement of full-time faculty benefits, effective 60 days from signing of the MOA:
  
  • 75% coverage for vision care plan, increase to $550 every two (2) years (up from $400) for persons over 18 years enrolled in the plan;
  • 75% coverage for vision care plan, increase to $550 every one (1) year (up from $400) for persons under 18 years enrolled in the plan;
  • 75% coverage for hearing care plan, increase to $3500 every three (3) years (up from $3000).
• The extension of partial employer-paid coverage to partial-load employees for benefits (vision care, hearing care and dental), effective May 1, 2025:
  
  • 25% employer-paid coverage for vision care plan;
  • 25% employer-paid coverage for hearing care plan:
  • 25% employer-paid coverage for dental plan
• Appendix A, containing items agreed to be the parties in bargaining prior to mediation (see page 6 of MOA);
• The union’s withdrawal of notice of labour action, and agreement that labour action will not take place this round;
• The withdrawal of our unfair labour practice application;
• The agreement that all proposals withdrawn prior to mediation beginning (December 6, 2024) remain withdrawn.
  

What happens next?

Dialogue will continue in mediation-arbitration under the facilitation of Arbitrator William Kaplan as we continue to work towards a final settlement. Any outstanding items that cannot be resolved in mediation may be ruled on by Kaplan, transitioning the process to binding arbitration.

Why mediation-arbitration?

While we didn’t hit the picket line this round, we still exercised our right to strike and historic mandate as leverage. Without significant improvement to our position, binding arbitration would have remained too risky an option with so many concessions still on the table that could find their way into a final contract.

Following movement at the table, the faculty bargaining team weighed all the risks and benefits to entering mediation-arbitration. While the details of mediation fall under the confidentiality agreed to by the parties, we hold a reasonable degree of confidence that the path chosen prepares a fair and favourable landscape for faculty in mediation-arbitration to get the best possible deal for 15,000 faculty across Ontario.

How long will it take before we have a new contract in hand?

The team is in the process of securing further mediation dates with Arbitrator Kaplan; the MOA terms outline that mediation-arbitration must be completed before June 30th, 2025. A final ruling is not expected before the end of the summer. Until then, the terms and conditions of our previous agreement remain in place, with the exception of benefits improvements mentioned above.

Fighting together on the road ahead

As we draw closer towards our next contract, we must not lose sight of the reality that the bargaining table is just one front in the fight to protect our colleges.

Workers exercise power through bargaining, but we build it through the connections we nurture every day in our classrooms, hallways, and our communities through the growing solidarity with our colleagues, the students we support, and other workers. 

It has been a hard few months – the economic anxiety of cuts unfolding at our colleges, let alone the affordability crisis in our communities, are material causes of uncertainty for many.

The CEC and the Colleges see this crisis as an opportunity to penny-pinch, to justify their refusal to invest, to deny workers contract improvements and better wages, and to threaten austerity when we are the ones that generate value for the colleges, bringing students’ learning to life.

Every crisis is also an opportunity for workers – to forge solidarity, and build collective power. And we are not done fighting for a better college system and quality education. 

In December, OPSEU/SEFPO communicated the skeleton of a better plan – one which allows colleges to live up to their legislated mandate to meet the needs of students, local employers and the communities they serve. 

In the prelude to a provincial election that’s only drawing closer, we are preparing to launch a policy paper that takes a deep dive into the data with respect to the international student cap, and breaks new ground with practical solutions.

Most importantly, we are ready to go after the bad actors at the top that have set up our college system like a house of cards. Already in 2021, the auditor general was reporting that Ontario had not developed a strategic plan for the sector to mitigate the potential fall out of colleges’ growing dependence on revenue from international student tuition fees.

Change is inevitable – but it doesn’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen under Ford and his risky college schemes.

Ontarians are waking up to the reality that we need a new blueprint for post-secondary education, in no small part because of faculty taking our fight to the eleventh hour. 

These next weeks, months, and years are a runway to finish building what we’ve started. A better college system is possible: we get to decide what it looks like, and what we are willing to do to realize it. 

Solidarity,

Your CAAT-A Bargaining Team:

Ravi Ramkissoonsingh, L242, Chair (he/him)
Michelle Arbour, L125, Acting-Chair (she/her)
Chad Croteau, L110 (he/him)
Bob Delaney, L237 (he/him)
Martin Lee, L415 (he/him)
Sean Lougheed, L657 (he/him)
Rebecca Ward, L732 (she/her)

Bargaining Bulletin 19

From January 6-7, 2025, your College Faculty bargaining team met with the College Employer Council (CEC) in non-binding mediation, in an effort to reach an agreement that protects faculty futures and safeguards quality education.

Today, the parties signed a Memorandum of Agreement, with significant benefit gains, particularly for our most precarious members. Using the leverage of a historic strike mandate, faculty were able to compel the CEC to withdraw significant concessions. The parties have agreed to send all outstanding items to mediation-arbitration with Arbitrator William Kaplan.

CAAT-A members have flexed our collective power in service of a better system. Back in October, nearly 80% of our members delivered a historic strike mandate – sending the strong message that faculty are prepared to strike to protect education. In the lead up to labour action, we began preparations to exercise that leverage.

Binding arbitration is a process workers can utilize to resolve outstanding items from negotiations in front of an arbitrator. As arbitration involves a third-party arbitrator weighing both parties’ proposals to rule on a final agreement, it was essential to the team that harmful concessions proposed by the employer that would erode our working conditions were off the table. Sufficient progress was made today on key priorities to clear the way towards a fair deal.

Our working conditions and students’ learning conditions are tied at the hip – and the CEC and the Colleges know that faculty are ready to stand up to protect both. As a result, we have seen more movement from the CEC in the past two (2) days than over the past six months.

Despite progress at the table, Arbitrator Kaplan concluded that we had reached an impasse – necessitating the decision to send all outstanding items to mediation-arbitration. As we have learned in previous rounds, we are bargaining with an unyielding employer prepared to sacrifice faculty and student futures to protect their corporate agenda

At a time where students and workers are hurting from program and staffing cuts, what we’re seeing is the end game of the Ford government’s two-step agenda: starve our public colleges of public funds, and encourage reliance on price-gouged international tuition. 

College executives were more than happy to go along with an agenda that exploits students and workers alike. Now that this house of cards is coming down, their contingency plan is austerity. Already in 2021, the Auditor General said that the Ford government knew well what was happening in our colleges – and that the province had no long term strategy. 

The reality is that we need to fight on all fronts to save our colleges, not just at the bargaining table. Ontario remains dead last amongst the provinces for per-student funding. In the government’s own words, every $1 invested in post-secondary education has a $1.36 return for Ontario. Underfunding our colleges is against public interest — the social and economic drivers in our communities direly need investment, more than we need a new luxury spa in Toronto.

Our sector’s stability is dependent on an overhauled funding model that treats our colleges like the public asset they are, not a cash-grab or a political pawn in federal immigration debates. Ontario’s colleges have a clear public mandate: to prepare students for their future, and to guarantee the economic health of our province. We are the teachers, librarians, and counsellors that bring students’ learning to life.

Our employer, and provincial government, have demonstrated time and time again that they are ready to act against public interests. And time after time, workers will be the force that holds them to account.

Solidarity,

Your CAAT-A Bargaining Team:

Ravi Ramkissoonsingh, L242, Chair (he/him)
Michelle Arbour, L125, Acting-Chair (she/her)
Chad Croteau, L110 (he/him)
Bob Delaney, L237 (he/him)
Martin Lee, L415 (he/him)
Sean Lougheed, L657 (he/him)
Rebecca Ward, L732 (she/her)