Last week, the College Employer Council (CEC) commenced the process required to initiate a ‘Forced Offer Vote,’ (FOV) which is a union-wide vote on collective agreement terms.

College administrators will have OPSEU-O members vote virtually on their most recent settlement offer between February 15-17. Employees have since received copies of the terms to review in anticipation. The CEC can onlCy utilize this mechanism once per bargaining round – thus, it is considered to be their ‘final’ offer.

 The decision was allegedly made with students in mind and to get CAAT-A back to the negotiating table. Alongside encouraging faculty to continue working until the votes have been counted, the CEC stressed the need to think of how students are affected by union actions.

“We urge OPSEU to keep their promise to put students’ needs first by not escalating the labour dispute,” said Dr. Laurie Rancourt, Chair of the CEC Management Bargaining team. Faculty have been protesting via a work-to-rule campaign since the beginning of January.

College employers hope that this move will allow all employees a chance to voice their opinions.

OPSEU-O released an informational video to members on January 20 to discuss the announcement; the Local 110 President Darryl Bedford shared that this is somewhat good news for the union.

The bargaining team believes that the CEC is clearly bothered by the work-to-rule campaign as well as the fact that the union has been keeping students informed of their current protest to use the FOV vote as a last resort – therefore, they have been putting pressure on the CEC, just as they had aimed to do.

According to the CEC itself, their offer “includes no concessions.” In other words, staff are being asked to vote on almost the very same terms that initially resulted in the decision to pursue labour action.

The exception to this would be an offer to create committees meant to address issues of workload, Indigenization and equity, diversity and inclusion. However, the union explains that these committees would be introduced with no stated terms on how disputes would be solved when they will arise. In addition, past task forces have not been successful in having productive discussions that incorporate the concerns of the union.

In essence, nothing has changed – key issues such as job protection, intellectual property and precarious work have still not been addressed. The vote is what the union deems a ‘power move,’ a means to bypassing negotiations, and which renders the whole bargaining process pointless.

Jeff Brown, acting chief steward at OPSEU Local 556 and professor at George Brown, wonders why the CEC waited to bring this vote to faculty, especially if no changes have been made.

“If it’s such a wonderful offer, then why not get faculty to vote on it instead of escalating further and putting faculty and students through all this stress and uncertainty?” he writes.

CAAT-A hopes that a ‘no’ vote will encourage college employers to get back to the bargaining table or consider binding interest arbitration.

If the offer is rejected, which the union anticipates, faculty plan to continue to work-to-rule.