College support staff take their picketing to MPP’s office

Ashley Nelles, Dean Burdett, Mike Davis and David Stevens, local members of OPSEU, at the picket line in front of MPP Matthew Rae’s Stratford office on Oct. 2.

CONNOR LUCZKA, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

After nearly a month of picketing in front of Conestoga College, local members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) have started to line up at Perth-Wellington MPP Matthew Rae’s Stratford office.

Carol Schlievert, strike leader on the picket line, told the Times on Oct. 2 they are “fighting for student supports.”

“Colleges are looking at contracting out a lot of the support systems that our students rely on, and we are the workers that supply that service,” Schlievert said. “Now, our fear is that when they source it out, they're going to be taking money out of our local economies, because when they source it out, it could go overseas, it could go anywhere, and our students are not going to get the quick responses that they would get if we had internal people that know the systems.

“… We thought it was time for Stratford to notice,” Schlievert went on to say about why they wanted to picket in front of Rae’s office. “There is some foot traffic on Erie Street at (Conestoga College’s Stratford) location. But more often than not, when people stop, they're questioning, ‘What are you doing here?’ They don't even know. So we're figuring here we're going to get more visibility.”

More than 10,000 OPSEU members – which include registrar workers, librarians and technology support staff – went on strike across the province on Sept. 11, after negotiations that started in June fell through. For local members that was a particularly unstable time. Conestoga’s new campus at 60 Erie Street had only opened at the beginning of September.

Although not privy to the contract negotiations, Rae said that he was aware of the picket line in front of his office that day.

“I appreciate the work that our college support staff do to keep our colleges a welcoming place where students can learn,” Rae said in an emailed statement. “Students make an incredible financial and personal investment into their education. It is imperative that faculty, staff, unions and institutions remember this when negotiating.

“The Government of Ontario is not party to this collective bargaining process; I hope that both sides come to the table and find a resolution that puts the best interests of our students and their education at the forefront.”

OPSEU representatives say the union is concerned about job security and program cuts. In response, the College Employer Council (CEC) says that the union’s demands are “fiscally impossible” when college enrolments and revenues are down so drastically.

“A complete ban on campus closures, college mergers and staff reductions could force colleges into bankruptcy,” said CEC’s CEO Graham Lloyd in a bargaining update on the eve of the strike. “CEC has repeatedly advised OPSEU that these types of demands simply can never be agreed to.”

As of press time, no agreement has been reached.