Strike Vote Today

Instructors at two dozen community colleges across Ontario, including those at Confederation College's campus in Fort Frances, will vote today on whether to give their union a strike mandate.

Ted Montgomery, chair of the union bargaining team for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, says a strike wouldn't happen for at least a month.

He says talks with the colleges broke down December 15 and the key issues are workload, academic freedom and management's decision in November to impose its offer on the teachers without letting them vote on it.

The union is seeking a 2.5 per cent pay increase in each year of a three-year contract while the colleges are offering 1.75 per cent in each of the first two years and two per cent in the last two years of a four-year deal.

Montgomery says a walkout would affect 200,000 full-time day students but not so much the 300,000 night-time students because most of their teachers work part time and aren't part of the union.

About 4,100 of the 22,530 members of a Facebook group called Ontario College Students Against a Strike have signed an online petition calling on the colleges and the union to come to terms without a strike that students fear could cost them their semester.