Talks between colleges and striking support staff resume

The Ontario Public Service Employee’s Union’s call to the province’s 24 colleges to come back to the bargaining table has been answered.

Within the next day or two both parties will resume negotiations to get college support staff workers off the picket line and back on the job.

OPSEU president Smokey Thomas was on the picket line at Confederation College Friday morning to rally the workers and show them the union is behind them.

He said their bargaining chair approached the mediator Thursday evening to formally approach the employer to say they are ready to come back to the table.

“Our group has been working on their positions with some alternatives to what the employer wants,” Thomas said. “They are really trying to find some middle ground with the employer, find some stuff that will work for the employer.”

Thomas said the strike is not about greed, but rather about maintaining the number of full-time jobs and the quality of the support staff’s work life.

“They woke up a sleeping giant if you will and now they’ve got a hell of a problem on their hands,” he said. “They’ve got 8,000 people on the street. The colleges are not functioning well; we know that for a fact.”

The union is asking for patience from the students affected by the strike and Thomas said he understands they are angry.

“I would be, too,” he said. “I ask them try to understand that this is two or three weeks of pain here…if it helps hang onto full-time jobs, when the students come out of college, they’ll be looking for a fulltime job.”

“We all need a fulltime job so we can live,” added Thomas.” The saying goes ‘you cannot live a fulltime life off of a part-time salary.”

Chair of the colleges’ bargaining team Gerry Barker told the Toronto Star Friday he hopes the talks will lead to deal.

“It’s never an ideal situation when 8,000 of your valuable workers aren’t on the job,” he said.
About 230 Confederation College employees have been on strike since Sept. 1.