March 23, 2006 3:30
pm
Colleges could end strike now by agreeing to arbitration
Ontario’s community colleges could end the strike by 9,100
faculty right now if they agreed to the union’s proposal on
arbitration, the head of the union bargaining team says.
“In the interests of saving our students’ semester, we
have called on management to agree to binding voluntary binding
arbitration as outlined in the Colleges Collective Bargaining Act.”
“Management refused. Instead, they are insisting on ‘final offer
selection,’ a process that is tantamount to flipping a coin.
“We are not in a position to take down picket lines
without a clear agreement on voluntary binding arbitration.”
Chris Bentley, Minister of Training, Colleges and
Universities, said today that the strike should end because both
parties have agreed to arbitration. This is not the case, said
Montgomery.
“The issues at stake here are too complex, and too
important” to be settled by final offer selection, Montgomery said
today. “Harvard law professor Paul Weiler, former head of the B.C.
Labour Relations Commission, has referred to final offer selection as
‘the industrial relations equivalent of Russian roulette,’ ” he said.
“It is rarely used in public sector negotiations, and with
good reason. It prevents the arbitrator from choosing the best
elements from both sides, as is the case with normal arbitration, and
it creates a winner and a loser, rather than a settlement that both
sides can live with.”
Earlier today, the union called on Ontario Premier Dalton
McGuinty to lend his support to voluntary binding arbitration to
resolve the strike.
“The Premier needs to put his support behind voluntary
binding arbitration as set out in the Colleges Collective
Bargaining Act so that all matters in these negotiations can be
carefully considered by an arbitrator.”
Until management agrees to voluntary binding arbitration,
strikers remain on the picket line. Some 25 solidarity rallies are
scheduled for today at campuses across the province. OPSEU picket
lines at every college are welcoming guests from the education sector
and the trade union movement.
