News, Analysis and Opinion
By E.P. Chant,
Managing Editor,
The Scene/Student Publications
I was hoping this was a very premature April Fool’s Day joke when it popped up on OPSEU’s webpage a day or two ago, but apparently not. It’s real:
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) filed a Charter challenge today regarding the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Labour Dispute Resolution Act, also known as Bill 178. The union maintains this Act, which forced an end to the college faculty strike in November 2017, violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas said the Charter challenge should come as no surprise. “We promised last November that we would challenge the government`s back-to-work legislation, and we are keeping that promise. This Act is unconstitutional.”
The union is demanding that the collective agreement awarded through the interest arbitration process be deemed to have expired, and that both parties return to the bargaining table (bold-faced emphasis is The Scene’s). “The union’s rights and freedoms have been denied,” said Thomas. “OPSEU has the right to freely negotiate a collective agreement with the College Employer Council.”
The Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Act has a provision that allows the government to step in if negotiations are not progressing. Premier Kathleen Wynne chose not to do so. This decision was a key factor leading to an unnecessary strike.
The College Employer Council forced a vote on a contract offer in November. Their ploy received a resounding “No” vote of 86 percent, which put faculty in a strong position to negotiate a fair contract. Wynne responded by allowing a three-hour window for negotiations, which predictably failed to produce a collective agreement. She then pushed through Bill 178 which legislated college faculty back to work and ensured an arbitrator imposed a new contract. This effectively ended the union’s right to freely bargain.
OPSEU is taking a stand for freedom of association as enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Thomas said. “The right to strike is essential to collective bargaining, and negotiating with the employer is central to the work of a union.”
“The Bill 178 return-to-work legislation violates rights and freedoms that workers have fought to win for more than a century. OPSEU is committed to protecting those hard-won rights.”
The public relations idiocy – and the basic gall – of this action is mind-boggling.
It is abhorrent and despicable to think that alarm may, again, be spread among an already frustrated and traumatized student population …
… Not to mention the possibility, perhaps remote, that a wrench could again be thrown into the successful wrap-up of their already complicated-beyond-measure academic year.
What happens if the Charter challenge is recognized by a judge, the previously arbitrator-imposed contract is nullified, a resumption of negotiations is ordered, but OPSEU and the Council slide right back into their entrenched and non-productive positions? A work-stoppage eventually resumes to reinforce OPSEU’s renewed demands?
Even if that scenario is unlikely, it is a possibility, and students are back into an atmosphere of uncertainty and tension.
A couple of ideas …
• Student governments should, collectively “seek standing” during the Charter challenge process, so that they too could make legal arguments on the issue. And they should argue that the rights of a couple hundred thousand students to pursue their educations and their futures – without being abused as hostages – should supersede the rights of 12,000 faculty members who are seeking only to renegotiate contract demands that have already (for the most part) been granted to them;
and/or
• If the Charter challenge is successful, and the current contract is nullified, the Council should immediately present a motion to the judge to – again – submit the matter to binding arbitration (which could have happened during the previous negotiations too). The judge could appoint the same arbitrator who dictated the government-imposed settlement, and he could re-impose the identical contract. I know that sounds stupid … but it would, in fact, mean that the oh-so-precious bargaining process was abided by. The only difference would be that the binding arbitration was requested by one of the negotiating parties, rather than having been implemented by government edict.
Stupid, wasteful, needless, abhorrent, despicable.
What a terrific way to start the year.
