By Lindsey Cole
The Oshawa Express

The final votes are in and Durham College faculty and students can breathe a sigh of relief.
A strike has been narrowly avoided as college faculty from across the province voted in favour of management’s final offer.
Around 300 mail-in ballots needed to be tallied after Ontario’s 24 colleges took to the voting tables on Feb. 10. Of the 24 colleges across the province, 51 per cent voted for the offer, with 53 per cent of Durham College’s faculty following suit.
According to Ted Montgomery, chair of the Ontario Public Employees Union (OPSEU) bargaining team, the margin for the latest vote was so close there were only 210 votes between the two sides.
As a result of the final tally, the offer from the colleges becomes the new collective agreement for the next three years, states OPSEU on their website.
But Montgomery says fear was the main motivation for the narrow win.
“We did not want a labour disruption, and had a plan to avoid one, but the employer took the stance with our members that it was either accept the offer or be forced out on strike,” Montgomery says.
“This vote is not an endorsement of the imposed terms and conditions or the employer’s last offer. Fear of a strike, according to most reports, was a key factor.”
The offer presented to teachers stems from disputes, which erupted in January after college faculty took to the voting tables to decide whether or not they would strike if talks between management and OPSEU broke down.
The majority of faculty did vote in favour of a strike but the union wanted to avoid it at all costs, says Montgomery. Then the Ontario Labour Relations Board said faculty had the right to vote on the final offer, which led to the Feb. 10 vote.
The offer presented to faculty by management was a 5.9 per cent salary increase over three years, said Durham’s Vice President of Human Resources Ken Robb in a previous interview with The Oshawa Express. The offer also included some decreases in workload, he said.
“Of course, at Durham College we are very happy to avoid a strike,” Robb adds.
“This is certainly good for our students. We can finish the academic year with no disruption and have a few more years before we need to bargain again.”
According to a release from the colleges, the approved offer provides workload and salary improvements for faculty, including a salary increase that moves the maximum salary to more than $102,000 by September 1, 2011. The colleges’ workload improvements also includes giving faculty more control over how workload is assigned, the release states.
“We are pleased that faculty saw this offer as fair and reasonable and one that they could accept,” said Dr. Rachael Donovan, chair of the colleges’ bargaining team.
However, Montgomery says the final offer isn’t enough and it isn’t about the money, it is about faculty being able to teach how they wanted to.