News briefs
Strike averted for Ontario colleges
TORONTO (CUP) – ON FEB. 24, the Ontario Labour Relations Board fi nally announced the official results of the Feb. 10 college faculty strike vote: only 51.45 per cent of the province’s 9,000 college faculty voted in favour of accepting management’s final contract offer, ultimately avoiding a strike and allowing a new collective agreement to be established.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents the faculty, is not happy with the result and claimed that fear of a strike was what pushed the vote slightly into the majority. Union president Warren Thomas added his concerns that the voting process was mismanaged, and indicated that they have filed formal complaints.
The colleges and faculty have been negotiating a new contract for the last nine months and initially voted in favour of a strike on Jan. 13.
The new contract will be in place for the next three years and includes a 5.9 per cent increase in salary over those years. Faculties were also given more control over their workloads. —Danielle Webb, CUP Ontario Bureau Chief
Food-assistance funding leaves Ontario students hungry: OUSA
WATERLOO, Ont. (CUP) – FROM MARCH 8 to 26, seven Ontario students will spend no more than $7.50 a day on food to showcase the $226-per month food and nutrition allocation prescribed by the Ontario Student Assistance Program. These students from across the province will participate in a “Food For Thought” campaign run by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) to advocate for more realistic funding for food from the student assistance program.
“We’re really working to draw attention to the fact that currently the Ontario Student Assistance Program is chronically underfunded and does far too little to support students,” said Dan Moulton, president of OUSA.
The participating students will share the difficulties of their experience over the course of the three weeks through blog entries, video blogs, and other types of social media available on OUSA’s website at ousa.ca. —Linda Givetash, The Cord
