• An “employer vote” is a vote by employees to accept or reject the final offer tabled by the employer.
• The Employer only gets to request this vote once during a bargaining cycle.

• The CEC believes faculty should have the chance to decide for themselves if they want to continue engaging in strike action or accept the employers offer.
• Since July, the Union bargaining team has repeatedly suggested that the CEC put its offer to a vote.
• The CEC believes its most recent offer addresses academic employees’ concerns in a reasonable and lawful way that promotes collaboration between the Union and management.

• The CEC applied for a final offer vote on Monday January 17, 2022.
• It takes approximately three weeks for the Ontario Labour Relations Board to organize a vote.
• During this time, both the CEC and OPSEU review the voter lists to ensure all eligible academic employees receive a pin to vote.
• The OLRB has confirmed the vote will take place virtually between February 15-17,2022.

• No, it shouldn’t. If the offer is accepted, the labour dispute is over.
• This vote is an opportunity for academic employees to voice their opinion on the employer offer by casting a vote to accept or reject the offer.
• The CEC has urged the Union to allow teachers to continue teaching until the vote results come in.

• The full offer is available on collegeemployercouncil.ca

• Increase annual wage to the maximum, retroactive to October 1^st 2021, as currently allowed under Bill 124.
• Include medical cannabis coverage prescribed by a licensed physician to a maximum of $4000/year, subject to prior authorization by the insurer.
• Enable Indigenous teachers to bring an elder or traditional knowledge keeper to the WMG as an advisor.
• Enable Indigenous employees to bring an elder or traditional knowledge keeper to grievance meetings as an advisor.
• Document Coordinator duties before an employee accepts a coordinatorship. Such acceptance will remain voluntary.
• Update the counsellor class definition.
• Enable Partial Load employees to accrue service for statutory Holidays on which they were scheduled to teach.
• Change Partial Load registration date from October 30^th to April 30^th.
• Extend Partial Load registration preference to courses which a partial load employee taught while part-time or sessional.
• Continue Partial Load priority for a course even if the course code changes, unless there has been a major revision of the course or curriculum.
• Add a new Letter of Understanding regarding the creation of a Workload Committee. The parties agree to engage in a two-step process with the purpose of resolving workload considerations. The Committee shall discuss and examine issues relating to the assignment of work to full-time faculty under Article 11 and to partial-load faculty under Article 26.

• Recognize the parties’ shared commitment to achieving employment equity within the college system. The parties shall establish a subcommittee of the Union/College Committee who shall, working in consultation with the existing college committees addressing EDI issues, report to the full UCC which shall then make annual recommendations to the President.
• Add new Letter of Understanding on Indigenization, Decolonization, and Truth and Reconciliation. OPSEU shall join with the CEC in establishing a collaborative Indigenous-driven process to work on issues related to Indigeneity in the context of employment under the Academic and Support Staff collective agreements within the Colleges.
• Identify two Indigenous arbitrators to be added to the list of arbitrators used in arbitration processes and listed in the Collective Agreement.

All full-time and partial-load professors and instructors and all full-time librarians and counsellors are eligible to vote and should receive a communication directly from the OLRB with their PIN and voting instructions.

You can contact the OLRB Voting Help Desk by telephone at 416-326-7432 (English) , 416-434-6748 (French).  When you contact them, you can indicate that you are calling about the employer final offer vote in OLRB case number 1918-21-VO. They can assist you in being added to the voters list.

CEC requested that the vote be held.  The CEC provided a list of voters obtained from the Colleges to OPSEU for validation.  The list was then provided to the OLRB.  The OLRB alone conducts the vote and OPSEU and the CEC have no involvement in that process.

In order for the employer final offer to become ratified, CEC must obtain 50 % plus 1 vote support from among the ballots cast in the employer final offer vote.  There is no minimum number of votes required for the vote to be valid.  The majority of votes cast will determine the outcome.

No.  The vote is entirely by secret ballot and you will not be personally associated with the vote that you cast.

It is likely the vote results will become available on February 18, 2022

• OPSEU may continue its work-to-rule, or escalate to a full walk-out strike without consulting with faculty again. The final offer vote is academic employees last opportunity to ensure there will be no escalation to the strike action.
• If OPSEU chooses to escalate to a full walk-out strike, the upcoming provincial election could affect the length of that strike. And, if faculty are legislated back to work, we don’t know what form of arbitration the government may choose, and neither side knows the terms that an Arbitrator may impose.

• There is nothing forced about this vote. Faculty are invited to respond to the offer and participate in the decision making of their bargaining unit. 

• The OPSEU team has refused to moderate its demands, demands that the Colleges have said that they can never agree to. We believe that employees, faculty, should have the opportunity to consider the Colleges’ final offer before continuing or escalating strike action. 
• The CEC is proud of its most recent offer. The CEC believes it addresses academic employees’ concerns in a reasonable and lawful way that promotes certainty in uncertain times for faculty, students, and the college system.