Fact Check - December 9, 2021
FACT CHECK - DECEMBER 9, 2021
Recently, in support of their assertion that a vote for a strike would not lead to a strike, the CAAT-A team said “…since 1975 there have been 14 strike votes resulting in 4 strikes. 4 out of 14”. According to the Gandz report in 1988 and the OLRB’s strike vote results provided to OPSEU and the CEC, there have been 9 strike votes in the academic bargaining unit, 6 of which resulted in a strike mandate.
Based on these records, 4 out of the 6 times that the CAAT-A team was given a strike mandate, they took faculty out on strike. They even took faculty out when only a bare majority of the ballots cast (54%) were cast in favour of strike.
We are presently negotiating the 22nd academic collective agreement for the Colleges. 12 of those collective agreements were reached without the Union calling for a strike vote (1971-73, 1973-75, 1976-77, 1977-78, 1980-81, 1981-82, 1982-83, 1985-87, 1991-94, 2001-03, 2012-14, and 2014-17).
The Union called for strike votes in 9 rounds of bargaining (1979-81, 1984-85, 1987-89, 1989-91, 1996-2001, 2003-05, 2005-09, 2009-12, and 2017-21). Of those strike votes, 6 resulted in strike mandates and 4 of those resulted in a strike:
- 1984 – 78 % in favour of strike – 3.5 week strike
- 1989 – 54.04 % in favour of strike – 4 week strike
- 2003 – 74.48 % in favour of strike - no strike
- 2005/2006 – 80.85 % in favour of strike – 4 week strike
- 2009 – 57.03 % in favour of strike - no strike
- 2017 – 68.23 % in favour of strike – 5.5 week strike
Historically, if faculty give CAAT-A a strike mandate, most of the time, they use it.
The virtual polls for the CAAT-A strike vote are open from 9:00 a.m. today until December 11 at 3:00 p.m. We urge all full-time and partial load academic employees to vote. If you don’t cast your ballot, you will be letting others decide whether you will be on the picket line this winter. Strikes start with strike votes.
