Confederation College faculty on strike in Thunder Bay, northwestern Ontario

About 150 full-time faculty members at the Thunder Bay, Ont.-based Confederation College are on strike.

Faculty at the college in Thunder Bay, as well as several satellite campuses in northwestern Ontario, are among more than 12,000 staff from 24 Ontario public colleges who walked off the job at 12:01 a.m. Monday, after talks with the College Employer Council which represents the colleges failed to produce a new collective bargaining agreement.

"We've been at the bargaining table since July," said Rebecca Ward, president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Local 732, which represents the striking Confederation faculty.

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"The bargaining unit for the academic union has put three separate proposals before the [College Employer Council], each one with significant adjustments," she said. "The college council has essentially just refused to negotiate."

The last round of talks took place this weekend and involved a mediator, Ward said. No agreement could be reached.

Outstanding issues have included job stability for partial-load faculty, who are faculty members that teach between six and 12 hours per week; currently, they are subject to single-semester contracts. OPSEUhas said it wants partial-load faculty contracts to span a full academic year.

Another outstanding issue is the ratio of full-time to part-time faculty members; the union wants the number of part-time staff to match the number of full-time staff.

At Confederation College, picket lines were set up Monday morning at about 7:30 a.m. Faculty were picketing at all the entrances to the main Thunder Bay campus Balmoral Street, Golf Links Road, and two entrances on William Street as well as at the college's Aviation Centre of Excellence, located off Arthur Street.

"It's an information picket," Ward said. "We're slowing people down, making sure they're aware of the issues we're facing ... and asking for their support."

"The community seems to be quite responsive to our needs."

All classes at Confederation have been cancelled for the duration of the strike, although the campus remains open and some services including the student union, child and family centre and wellness centre continue to operate.

Students show support

Students, too, joined the campus picket line on Monday. One of them was second-year film production student John Holmes.

"We just wanted to support our teachers," Holmes told CBC News. "We just wanted to try and affect the change."

About 20 people from the film production program were on the picket line in total, Holmes said.

A big issue for him is the number of full-time to part-time teachers. Part-time faculty are only paid for their in-class time, not for any office time outside of that.

However, Holmes said, all the part-time teachers he's had are wiling to spend time outside of their paid hours helping students.

It's just really unfair-John Holmes, film production student at Confederation College

"It's just really unfair," he said. "I'd like to see more full-time teachers in our program, so we can get a better education out of it."

Holmes, 21, said he's from Nova Scotia, which adds a bit of tension to things for him.

"If this goes too, too long then we're going to extend the school year, and my lease runs out in April," he said. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do if that happens."

Holmes said he plans to sign a petition that's been circulating, calling on the province to refund students' tuition for every day the strike goes on.

The bulk of Confederation's 150 affected faculty membersare based at the Thunder Bay campus; there are a handful located in the college's regional campuses, and a rotating picket line is planned for those locations, Ward said.

The strike only involves full-time and partial-load faculty; part-time and sessional faculty aren't part of the union (they voted this month whether to join OPSEU and form a separate bargaining unit, but the results aren't yet available).