As 9,100 Ontario college instructors, librarians and counsellors end the third week of their strike, it does not look as though the 150,000 students affected will be returning to class any time soon.
The colleges have offered the strikers a 12.6 per cent salary increase over four years but have been told that salaries aren’t the issue, class sizes are. According to the Toronto Star, the union wants to “improve the quality of education by reducing class sizes through the hiring of more full-time teachers to lower the student-instructor ratio. It also wants class sizes, now averaging about 28, trimmed to 25, and the percentage of part-timers cut from its current level of about one-third to 20 per cent over the life of the new contract.” The strike comes at a very inopportune time of the academic year. Students are so close to finishing and yet may eventually be forced to forfeit the term. Regardless, students should be compensated for the class time already lost. Many will face housing issues given that many leases will end in May while courses may not. They may also lose part of their summers usually spent working to earn tuition dollars. Additionally, there is the issue of graduation for those close to the end of their college programs. It is hardly fair for students to be used as pawns while the two sides remain suspended in indecision and far from negotiations.
It seems as though both sides have spent too much time arguing and too little time actually at the bargaining table. It is about time both sides sat down and reached a deal in the interests of students, particularly since few students have voiced for the strikers’ demands. For many students, with May looming large, a deal can’t come quickly enough, even if it requires the involvement of a third-party mediator.
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