Deal reached

While the union hasn’t voted on the tentative deal yet, striking Ontario college support workers have left the picket lines and will head back to work.

The bargaining team for the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union went back to the table over the weekend and reached a tentative deal. Support staff who have been on strike since Sept. 1 haven’t voted on the deal, but the bargaining team unanimously recommended the offer.

OPSEU spokeswoman Elaine Kerr heard the news about the deal Sunday night and phoned local workers to ensure they didn’t have to wake up to go to the picket line at 5 a.m.

Kerr couldn’t give any details about the deal, but said she was happy with what they got and expected to have a vote on the offer sometime this week.

“The team is saying yes let’s go for this for this,” Kerr said.

“We’re back to work (Tuesday) and everything goes back to as normal as it can be. It’s not unusual to go back to work without ratifying the deal first because the deal was what we were after. I’m sure there was give-and-take from both sides but (the bargaining team) is very pleased.

“Some of the things that we were frightened of losing we have not lost.”

Some of the issues the union wanted to addressed included job security and replacing full-time jobs with part-time employment. Kerr said that was a huge win for the union to ensure that they would be able to keep full-time jobs.

Besides a few students who tried to run the picket line, she said the strike went well and thought the strike helped make people more aware of what the support workers do.

Confederation College President Jim Madder said he was ecstatic to have the support staff back at work.

“There are 230 really valued employees and we certainly miss them and all the great work they were doing,” Madder said.

“Coming back allows us to open the day-care centre, open our fitness centre and having managers back doing their regular work rather than covering the work of our OPSEU employees. The whole organization was under a significant amount of stress including our students.”