LITTLE CURRENT—Striking Cambrian College full-time support workers could be seen wielding placards across the street from the downtown Little Current Cambrian College offices last week and this week.
More than 200 full-time support staff at Cambrian College are among 10,000 college workers across Ontario who went on strike as of midnight Thursday, September 11. They include a number of workers at the Little Current office.
OPSEU says they are fighting not only for themselves but also for the students who they support. A union representative for striking support staff at Cambrian College is asking students who may be affected by the labour dispute to have patience.
“We’re fighting for them, because all the cuts that affect student services ultimately affect them,” said Yvan Roy, vice-president of OPSEU Local 656. “We want to be at work. We want to be able to support our students and provide the services that we provide, so that they can have a pleasant college experience.”
Mr. Roy said his members are the heartbeat of the college, fulfilling jobs such as information technology, facilities maintenance, library technicians, accessibility services, cleaning, financial aid, enrollment and a host of other services.
The College Employer Council (CEC) “walked away from the [negotiation] table” according to the union, after failing to respond since 4 pm on Wednesday, September 10, according to a release from the OPSEU. “If they think they can neglect their responsibility to bargain, it’s time we remind them there is power in the union.”
The union estimates that previous and upcoming system-wide cuts will result in 10,000 job losses, and over 650 programs have already been cancelled.
Colleges have been increasingly relying on tuition from international students due to low levels of provincial government funding and a years-long tuition freeze and have been struggling since the federal government enacted a cap on international students, notes the College unions. A government-commissioned report found in 2023 that Ontario’s college funding per student is just 44 percent of the level of the rest of the country. For its part, the CEC claimed in a Wednesday, September 10 statement that the union was demanding “poison pill” contract demands. “It says the union’s demands are fiscally impossible in a time when college enrolments and revenues are down by as much as 50 percent.
The colleges also maintain that it was also “categorically false” that the CEC walked away from negotiations Wednesday evening. According to the CEC’s CEO Graham Lloyd the negotiation team informed the union they wouldn’t respond to their last offer, unless certain “unacceptable” measures were changed. Those measures included the prohibition of college closures, campus mergers and any layoff or reduction of staff during the contract period.
The striking workers in Little Current set up their picket line on the sidewalk across from the Cambrian offices, citing that they did not want to infringe upon the businesses located on either side of those offices.