Moving in

Out of town students were relieved they didn’t have to cross a picket line in order to move into the Confederation College residence.

Ontario Public Sector Employees Union workers across the province walked off the job on Thursday to fight for better wages, the retention of benefits and job security. About 230 Confederation College staff members at nine regional campuses are affected by the present labour action.

Among those on strike are workers from the admissions and records departments, facilities employees and cleaning staff and food services personnel.

Picketers were stationed at all three entrances to the college last week but that wasn’t the case on Saturday.

Not a single picketer was seen as students from across the country moved into the college’s residency.

Adam Galloway, from St. Thomas, Ont., arrived at the college with his parents Paul and Monicka. The 18-year-old second year film production student said he was glad that he didn’t have to cross the picket line.

“I’m glad I stayed away from the picketers,” Galloway said. “I don’t know too much about it but I was told that (the strike) would be taken care of in a couple of days before school started. Hopefully everything goes well and I can go to class.”

Paul said they were prepared to deal with the striking workers and cross the picket line if need be but wasn’t overly concerned about it.

He said he hoped the strike would end quickly so that it wouldn’t impact the students.

“Anything is going to put a little hiccup, especially for students coming back to school,” Paul said. “There’s enough stress with that. You don’t need to add anymore. Hopefully it will be over soon.”

Kayla Campbell and her parents travelled 16 hours from her hometown of Thompson, Man. to move her into her room at the college. Campbell, 18, finished pre-health sciences last year and enrolled into her first year of medical radiation.  

With so much to move into her room, she said she was relieved that she didn’t have to worry about picketers.

“It’s a bummer about the gym being shut down but we’ll work through it,” Campbell said.

In an earlier interview with tbnewswatch.com, OPSEU spokeswoman Elaine Kerr said she hoped a deal could be reached soon, but was more than ready to stick things out for the long haul.

“We’re looking for good jobs for this community. When you look at the region … there’s only a few of them, but these are good jobs and we want to keep them so that people can stay in those regions and stay in Thunder Bay and take over when some of us are ready to leave,” Kerr said on Thursday. “It’s important, it’s really, really important.”