The Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) has just confirmed officially that Ontario’s full-time academic staff have voted 51.45% to accept the colleges’ final offer.  With the majority of faculty voting to accept the offer the threat of a province-wide strike is now gone.

“The most important task ahead for both the colleges and the faculty will be to put any remaining issues and feelings behind them and get back to focusing on providing students and Ontarians with the education and training needed to prosper in today’s knowledge-based economy,” says Justin Fox, President of the College Student Alliance.

The final vote count was 4473 voted to accept and 4221 voted to reject.

Click here to read the detailed final offer that was accepted by the faculty.

Tomorrow, February 24th, the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) is expected to provide both the College Compensation & Appointments Council and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union with the official count on the college’s final offer.  Over the last 10 or so days, the OLRB has been reviewing all the votes cast on February 10th and adding the segregated and mail-in ballots to arrive at the official result of the vote on the college’s final offer.

Refresher of the unofficial results:

• Turn Out = 77.28%
• Votes Accepting Offer = 51.25%
• Votes Rejecting Offer = 48.74%

Stay tuned tomorrow afternoon for more information…

Through the Strong(er) Campaign, students from across the province has been asked share their stories and tell us how a strike would impact them…these are their stories:

The unofficial results are in…77.28% of full-time academic staff cast their ballots with 51.25% voting to accept the colleges’ final offer and 48.74% voting to reject the offer.  The official results will be determined by the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) after a review of all of the ballots, including segregated ballots and mail-in ballots; this should take approximately 10 days.

Unofficial Results by College

Update::

The Union has postponed the strike deadline, previously set for Feb. 17th,  indefinitely until the final results are in.

Students Unite to End Current Academic Labour Unrest

Toronto, ON—College students from across the province are uniting to deliver a simple equation to both the colleges and the over 10,000 full-time academic staff, “Strong Academics + Strong Colleges = Strong(er) Students”. The College Student Alliance (CSA) and its members are launching the Strong(er) Campaign today to remind the colleges and the faculty of their shared role in creating strong students and graduates.

“With faculty set to vote on the colleges’ ‘final’ offer this week and the very real threat of a province-wide academic strike looming over the college system, students are concerned as their education hangs in the balance,” says Justin Fox, President of the College Student Alliance.

The Strong(er) Campaign was designed to remind everyone why colleges exist, it’s the students. If there were no students then there would be no need for Ontario’s 24 colleges and their campuses in over 100 different communities. Along with wearing the ‘Strong(er)’ bracelets students will be sharing their personal worries, frustrations and explaining how a strike would impact them. All of the stories and video pleas will be uploaded to our central strike information website, www.collegestrike.ca.

“Students are frustrated, angry and panicked as the colleges and the union have not been able to resolve their issues in eight months of bargaining,” adds Fox.

The CSA and students are urging all full-time and partial load professors, librarians and counselors to review the final offer being proposed; think about where the right place for their students is; and vote on Wednesday, February 10th. The result is too important for everyone concerned. All academic staff must go out and exercise their vote.

“It is time that our colleges get back to focusing on providing relevant and timely education and training to ensure that Ontario and Ontarians are able to recover from the recent recession rather than facing a potential province-wide strike,” adds Tyler Charlebois, Director of Advocacy.

For more information on the potential strike and its impacts on students, visit www.collegestrike.ca.

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The College Student Alliance (CSA) is an advocacy and leadership organization, which has been proudly serving Ontario’s college and college-university students since 1975. The CSA currently represents 17 colleges and 25 member councils with over 127,000 full-time student members throughout the province.

The college’s bargaining team has just issued a press release in which they state that they have asked the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) to begin preparations for a ‘final’ offer vote. A date for the vote will be set by the OLRB, but the colleges have asked that the Board expedite the process to ensure that faculty have an opportunity to vote on the offer before OPSEU’s strike date of February 11th.

Also, the colleges have rejected the Unions proposal of going to binding arbitration. Dr. Donovan, chair of the bargaining team said, “binding arbitration is not the answer. We believe the right approach is to allow the faculty an opportunity to vote on this offer, not to bypass them by giving the responsibility to a third party.”

Update…
OPSEU has issued a press release encouraging their members to vote NO to the ‘final’ offer by the colleges. And has stated that they are prepared to move their strike deadline so that members can vote as long as the vote can be arranged on or before February 12th.

Update…
The Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) has set February 10th, 2010 as the date for all full-time academic staff to vote on the college’s ‘final’ offer.

Update…
OPSEU has just announced that they are moving their strike deadline to February 17th, 2010.

In a press conference this afternoon, OPSEU has set a strike deadline of February 11, 2010 for both sides to reach a new collective agreement. The union has also proposed that the parties can go to binding arbitration to resolve the rest of their issues on the table and avoid a strike.

If a new agreement is not reached or both sides haven’t entered into binding arbitration by Midnight on the 10th of February, all 10,000 full-time academic staff will be on strike.

The Colleges are currently reviewing their options and will have an answer either today or early tomorrow. “We’re disappointed the union has set a strike deadline and refused to take our final offer to members for a vote,” says Nancy Hood, vice-chair of the colleges’ academic bargaining team.

More information to come…

www.cp24.caToday, at 2PM OPSEU will be holding a press conference to make an important annoucement related to the current round of bargaining and the lack of progress to a new collective agreement.

Stay tuned for more information later this afternoon.

CP24 will be carrying the press conference live (www.cp24.ca)

Contrary to media reports, OPSEU has not decided yet whether or not they will take the college’s “final” offer to their membership for a vote. According to the Mediator, OPSEU will notify the colleges on Monday of their decision.

Yesterday, after two days of bargaining with a provincial mediator, the parties were not able to reach a new agreement. According to the College Compensation and Appointments Council (the Council), “the parties are too far apart.” The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) has rejected the Council’s final offer, so the Council has asked that a vote be taken by the membership (FT professors, counselors and librarians) on their offer. OPSEU has until noon today to announce whether or not they will call for a final offer vote.

If the vote happens and the academic staff accept the offer then bargaining will be complete and the threat of a province-wide strike will be over. If they don’t vote or reject the final offer then the union’s only move left is a work stoppage.

***No word from OPSEU yet***

Stay tuned for more updates today…