The College Employer Council (CEC) and the Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU) announced late Tuesday night that they had agreed to enter into binding arbitration, avoiding a strike.
The union, which represents more than 15,000 faculty members across the province, had said some form of labour action could have begun on Thursday after it gave five days' notice last week.
OPSEU said Tuesday that "significant benefit gains" were agreed upon with the employers but that the sides otherwise remained at an impasse, with the outstanding items to be resolved by the arbitrator.
Mark Colangelo is a professor in the developmental service worker program at St. Clair College and president of OPSEU Local 138.
He represents 320 full-time faculty members and around 215 part-time members at St. Clair.
Colangelo says they have not been given any full details of the settlement yet.
"When I say the news is fresh, we were just informed last night around 11 p.m. that we had a deal in principal, and the outstanding issues were going to arbitration. So when I saw it's brand new, it's brand new. None of us have had the opportunity to digest or even been given the information to digest at this point."
He says he believes that the pressure both sides were facing of potential labour action on Thursday helped during the past two days of talks.
"They were able to get through some of the real pressing issues, get them settled and looked at the things they couldn't get through in that time period, and put them in front of an arbitrator who can sit down and look at the outstanding issues and come up with a fair settlement for both sides."
Key issues include work conditions, job security and quality of education.
Colangelo says people may not know that many teaching faculty work contract to contract, week to week, and month to month.
He said he had been hearing unconfirmed reports of gains made by the union.
"One of the things that was negotiated, and again not released yet, is that benefits will be partially covered for those precarious employees, by the the employer. So that's a huge win for those precarious employees."
All classes are set to continue as scheduled this week.
Colangelo expects the case to be in front of the arbitrator this spring.
-With files from AM800's The Dan MacDonald Show with guest host Kyle Horner and The Canadian Press
