Certainty of Outcome

Certainty of Outcome

Management Bargaining Update February 10, 2022

Today, we are sharing with you a direct but important message about the uncertainty that a rejection of our final offer would create for you, your students, and the college system.

We know that OPSEU is encouraging you to reject our offer. They claim that a rejection will force CEC to give more. (This is the same message they gave about a vote in favour of strike.)

Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Final offer is the best offer we can put forward. There will not be a further offer.

We have told OPSEU many times since August that we cannot agree to their outstanding demands:

• Arbitration is the wrong way to address workload and to advance EDI and Truth and Reconciliation – we need to move forward together through consensus.
• We will not agree to provisions that would strip work away from other employee groups.
• We will not create greater uncertainty for partial-load faculty by allowing longer serving faculty to bump other partial-load faculty out of assignments.
• Bill 124 prohibits us from accepting the workload demands put forward by OPSEU. The Union demands breach Bill 124 and we cannot violate the legislation. The proposed workload committee will review all of these issues before the next round of bargaining when Bill 124 will no longer constrain us.

A rejection of our offer will only create more uncertainty.

OPSEU may continue its work-to-rule, or escalate to a full walk-out strike withut consulting with faculty again. The final offer vote is your last opportunity to ensure there will be no escalation to the strike action.

If OPSEU chooses to escalate to a full walk-out strike, the upcoming provincial election could affect the length of that strike. And, if faculty are legislated back to work, we don’t know what form of arbitration the government may choose, and neither side knows the terms that an Arbitrator may impose.

By voting YES on management’s final offer you can bring the certainty you, your students, and your colleges deserve in these uncertain times. The next round of collective bargaining begins in less than 2.5 years. Let’s settle this collective agreement now so that we can focus on working together on important issues that affect us all.

Vote YES Feb 15-17.

Sincerely,

The Management Bargaining Team

Dr. Laurie Rancourt (she/her) Bargaining Chair, Humber College

Stephanie Ball (she/her) Executive Dean, Durham College

Goranka Vukelich, PhD (she/her) Executive Dean, Conestoga College

Ian Wigglesworth (he/him), Associate Vice President, George Brown College

Jeannine Verdenik (she/her) Executive Director, Confederation College

Leslie Casson (she/her) Associate Dean, St. Lawrence College