Georgian College students headed back to class as faculty strike called off

A potential strike that would have seen classrooms closed at Georgian College tomorrow has been called off in a last-minute agreement.

The union representing the faculty of the 24 colleges across the province reached an agreement with the College Employer Council (CEC) to continue ongoing deliberations, thereby calling off a threatened strike that was set to go into effect at midnight tonight.

The two sides will be entering binding interest arbitration.

"It's important for people to know that this round is not about wages," said Mark Dorsey, the communications for Local 350 Georgian College Faculty Union. "Bill 124 has limited public servant wages to one per cent, so we're not fighting for wages."

Dorsey said this round is about several different issues, including:

• Greater protections for workload compensations (much of the current understanding predates the digital age, which Dorsey said has created more work over the years)
• Greater protections for contract staff & councillors
• Stronger intellectual property rights for material created by college faculty

"I think it's super important for the resolution to be reached sooner than later," said Ishaan Sachdeva," the president of Georgian College's Student Association on Barrie's campus. "I think the sooner, the better because students have already suffered a lot in the past few years."

The CES said it is willing to commit to a final offer arbitration, allowing a third-party arbitrator to decide between two offers from each side.

However, Dorsey said the faculty union is unwilling to go that route, instead hoping the CES accepts its offer for binding interest arbitration, in which a third party will find a compromise between the outstanding issues.

"We're not afraid to open things up to individual demands and take a look at things individually and have an arbitrator decide what is fair for both sides moving forward," Dorsey said.