Remarks by Ted Montgomery to a
news conference on college faculty bargaining
March 22, 2006, 5:15 p.m., Royal York Hotel, Toronto
We
have formally proposed today that the parties agree to Voluntary
Binding Arbitration as set out in the Colleges Collective
Bargaining Act.
The
faculty team has now seen several of the so-called Semester
Completion Strategies. They will seriously damage the value of
Ontario college credentials for this year’s students, and for
decades to come. Faculty are committed to quality and do not want to
see this harmful action put into place.
Bob
Rae identified serious quality deficits in his 2005 Report. The
resolve of faculty to attend to these problems is no less than it
has been since negotiations began. Rallies are scheduled for
tomorrow at every college with support from ETFO, OECTA, OSSTF,
OCUFA and other unions.
After 2 ˝ days at the hotel, it is abundantly clear that
negotiations are not going to produce a settlement that addresses
the needs of the colleges and our students.
For
over 14 months of bargaining and now two weeks into a strike,
management has not tabled an offer that does anything to improve the
quality of education for college students.
We
are faced with essentially the same offer that produced the strike,
with three minor amendments.
One
amendment is a commitment that the colleges will hire 120 more
faculty over the next three years.
Over the last three years, the colleges hired an additional 291
faculty members – just to accommodate growth. Their offer this week
could actually reduce hiring at the very time that the ministry has
announced that it will be launching a major initiative to increase
enrollments in the colleges. These hires will not decrease class
size and college students will have no more time with their teachers
under this proposal. Those were the promises Premier McGuinty made
in May. Those will be promises broken by this offer.
The
2006 funding allocation to the colleges was $1.076 billion. That was
a $133.5 million increase over 2005 – a 14 per cent increase. The
college allocation to new faculty hires in 2006-07 was $3.9 million
which is 0.36 per cent of the funding. The minister has announced
that funding will increase in 2007. Of that $133.5 million, $87.3
million was in the Quality Improvement Fund. The hiring of more
teachers is the first priority of that fund. The 2006 proposed
hiring – which comes to the union for the first time two weeks into
the strike after months of stonewalling – is just 4.4 per cent of
that $87.3 million.
That is not commitment to quality. That is another promise broken.
While a negotiated settlement is preferable, that is clearly not
going to happen. Knowing that arbitration is inevitable, we see no
reason to keep students from their classrooms and their teachers.
An
Arbitration Board will be able to hear the case of the faculty and
the employer and make a ruling on all issues.
The
workload and quality issues are obviously critical.
Premier McGuinty has not delivered. The colleges have not delivered.
It is time to get the students back in class and get a resolution of
all the issues between the colleges and their faculty.
