KAWARTHA LAKES-OPSEU/SEFPO’s college faculty bargaining team and the College Employer Council have issued a joint statement saying both had agreed to enter into binding arbitration.
“The parties have reached an agreement to enter binding interest arbitration and the strike that was scheduled to commence at 12:01 am on March 18, 2022, is called off.” said a press release from OPSEU. “This also concludes all work-to-rule strike activities.”
Some 16,000 faculty at Ontario’s 24 public colleges said they would go on strike at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, March 18 if the College Employer Council (CEC) does not agree to voluntary binding interest arbitration.
Binding interest arbitration is frequently used in post-secondary education and other critical services. It involves both parties’ asking a neutral arbitrator to resolve a bargaining dispute as an alternative to a strike or lockout. Both sides provide proposals to the arbitrator, who in effect creates a compromise from the two proposals.
The CEC has a different form of arbitration, where an arbitrator must choose the proposal of just one of the parties.
