{"id":113533,"date":"2025-09-02T05:53:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T05:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/113533\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T05:53:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T05:53:06","slug":"ontario-college-support-staff-set-to-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/113533\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario college support staff set to strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Support staff at 24 Ontario colleges are prepared for strike action as early as next week as the deadline approaches on their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/windsor\/article\/ontario-college-support-staff-take-step-toward-strike-with-no-board-request\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/windsor\/article\/ontario-college-support-staff-take-step-toward-strike-with-no-board-request\/\">new contract<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In a news release Monday, OPSEU\/SEFPO, the union representing college support staff, said 10,000 full-time workers will be on strike as of 12:01 a.m. on Sept. 11 if a deal is not reached.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cAfter 21 full days of bargaining, we have yet to reach an agreement that meets our members\u2019 top-line priority: job security,\u201d said Christine Kelsey, chair of the full-time support bargaining team. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThe future of our work is the future of student support on college campuses. After the strain that devastating job cuts have put on those supports, we need some guarantee that we can protect what\u2019s left so students don\u2019t fall through the cracks.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cCollege support staff are the foundation of student experience across over 150 job classifications,\u201d added Kelsey. \u201cWe represent members in accessibility support services and financial aid offices, dedicated support staff for Indigenous students, electricians and library technicians \u2013 amongst so many others.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The union accused \u201cyears of deliberate government underfunding and administrative mismanagement\u201d for leading to what they call \u201cone of the largest lay-offs in provincial history,\u201d saying over 10,000 job cuts have been seen across the college system, as over 650 programs have been suspended or cancelled. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThese are good, family-sustaining jobs leaving our communities when unemployment is at a record high in Ontario \u2013 especially small communities, where colleges are an economic hub,\u201d said JP Hornick, President of OPSEU\/SEFPO. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Hornick added that provincial grants once covered three-quarters of operating expenses when the college system was first engineered in 1967, but said they\u2019ve now fallen to less than a third.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The union also announced that the bargaining team representing 13,000 part-time college support staff also gave notice that their workers are seeking a province-wide strike vote this semester. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Students are set to head back to the classroom on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Support staff at 24 Ontario colleges are prepared for strike action as early as next week as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-113533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}