To my students, about the strike
It’s time we talked.
This week, the labour disruption in Ontario’s colleges became the longest in the system’s history, which this year marks 50 years. You’ve been out of classes — caught in the middle between administrators and faculty — for nearly as long as you were in classes to begin the school year. So you’re owed some frank talk that goes beyond the abundant, official messages that the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) and the College Employer Council (CEC) are peddling.
The week before this strike began, you were eager to talk. You were already anxious. You wanted to know what the issues were. You wanted to know about the possibility that negotiations could go sideways. You wanted to know what I thought.
Mostly, I demurred. I was holding out hope that both sides in the dispute would come to some sort of last-minute agreement. Then on the Friday, Oct. 13, just before the strike began, one of you asked me, “Will we have classes on Monday?”
“I hope so,” was my (rather lame) reply. We both know how that worked out. So now, given where we’re at, I’ll be straight up with you — or at least as direct and dispassionate as I can be, given we all have our biases (Remember that discussion from back in September?).
First, a bit of background. In the course of my career, I’ve played a variety of roles during labour disputes. I’ve been both a union member and a manager. I’ve crossed picket lines to go to work. I’ve been part of management strategy meetings to prepare for a strike by union members. And I’ve been on a picket line, as I am currently. Throughout, I’ve never considered myself a strong “union guy,” though I do acknowledge the important strides the labour movement in Canada has made on behalf of workers. Mostly, I consider the set of laws, regulations and practices that govern labour negotiations in Ontario to be outdated and anachronistic, as I stated in a recent column.
In September, I voted against a strike. (At Conestoga, only 60 per cent of instructors voted in favour, with a turnout of two-thirds of eligible voters.) I felt the union was over-reaching; that the issues of precarious work and academic freedom, while very important, were matters that required a more gradual and considered approach than the one OPSEU was taking. Besides, my career has shown me just how corrosive to the workplace a strike can be. No matter a strike’s outcome, it often takes years for relationships, confidence and trust to recover.
I have enjoyed my nine-year career at Conestoga tremendously. My faculty colleagues are first-rate teachers, highly competent in their fields, with delightful personalities — they are part of what makes going to work a joy. (The other part of is you, my students.) My managers, by and large, are dedicated individuals whose aim is to support faculty as best they can with the resources available to them, while nurturing bold visions for the future of the college.
My journalism career has taught me to be skeptical about the claims of both sides in any labour dispute. Here, as in war, truth is usually the first casualty. So I took with a huge grain of salt the claims of union officials who said that the CEC simply wasn’t interested in negotiating and that they were adopting a take-it-or-leave-it stance, just as I received with similar skepticism the CEC’s assertions that faculty were being obstinate, greedy and out of touch with reality.
That changed for me on Oct. 11, when I witnessed, firsthand, a clear indicator of what I considered bad faith on the part of senior administration at Conestoga College. I won’t divulge specifics here, but it was an incident I won’t soon forget.
Fast-forward to now. Faculty were asked last week to vote on a contract offer from the CEC that wasn’t much different from the one they first tendered months ago. And over the past weeks, the CEC, as well as some college presidents, have repeatedly questioned the commitment of faculty to their students, ridiculed faculty suggestions that they should own (let alone control) the content and teaching methods connected to their courses, and denigrated the role of faculty in making a great college great.
This week’s resounding rejection of the colleges’ offer by faculty does not mean:
(a) that faculty don’t care about our students or the risk of losing a semester; (b) that faculty want more money; (c) that faculty are committed to unthinkingly following our union leaders, like lemmings, over a cliff, no matter how high, or (d) that faculty are obstinate, stubborn, unreasonable and inconsiderate of both our students and Ontario taxpayers.
Rather, the strong “no” vote (95 per cent of faculty voted, with 86 per cent of them voting to reject the offer) occurred because it was the only chance faculty had to make a statement directly to the CEC about the current dispute. And what we have said is simply this: We know better than anyone — certainly better than executives ensconced in administrative offices — about what our students need to achieve success in their fields.
Our intellectual property should be ours, not something the colleges can sell in the global education marketplace (which, at Conestoga, they have done). The risks of precarious work are real, and affect not only faculty, but also students and, ultimately, our societal institutions. And finally, faculty want to be full partners in creating a world-class system that produces inventive pedagogy, superior learning and success for the students that invest their futures in us. The best way for Ontario’s colleges to embark on the next 50 years would be to clasp the open hand of their faculty and become that kind of partner.
When we meet again inside a classroom — where we both belong — we’ll have plenty of work to do. Until then, continue practising, writing, interviewing and thinking critically. And above all, don’t lose faith. I certainly won’t.
Larry Cornies, journalism professor, Conestoga College