After three days of virtual voting, teachers, counsellors and librarians at the province's colleges voted 59.4 per cent in favour of a strike, to back contract demands.
The contract for academic staff, which covers full and partial load teachers, counsellors and librarians, expired in September 2021.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) represents 15,000 faculty, while the College Employer Council (CEC) bargains as the employer for all 24 colleges in Ontario.
Speaking on AM800's The Morning Drive, OPSEU Bargaining Team Chair JP Hornick says over two thirds of their faculty came out in favour of labour action.
"Not necessarily a strike to start out with. We're trying to build pressure not so much on the students but on the administrators where it belongs. Because the faculty demands are actually designed to support students in their learning and the employer has refused to consider them."
In a statement on their website, the CEC says just 68 per cent of staff cast a ballot in the strike vote.
“Even though only 40 per cent of the entire bargaining unit have expressed their support for a strike, the CAAT-A team now has their strike mandate,” the statement reads.
Hornick says if a strike becomes necessary, it's going to be because the employer continues to refuse to actually negotiate.
"We have an offer out there for voluntary interest arbitration. The employer has a path actually to avoid labour disruption altogether but at every stage of this process and what's been really frustrating is that every time we've offered de-escalation they've gone down the road of trying to ramp it up."
CEC says that during the pandemic, the Colleges have demonstrated an ongoing commitment to labour stability for faculty.
Faculty have not been laid off and new full-time positions have been filled, and they're urging the CAAT-A team not to jeopardize student learning during the winter semester.
Hornick says there are a number of outstanding issues at play, including workload improvement.
"We have preparation and evaluation factors that haven't changed since 1985 despite online learning, despite universal design and learning that's intended to support supports. Literally at the maximum we're given five minutes per week per student to evaluate their work."
Hornick says they've also proposed creating a workload task force that has a dispute resolution mechanism included, because they've had four of these task forces since 1985, all headed by the employer and none of them have managed to make changes to support students in classes.
Hornick hopes that this strike vote will be the CEC’s incentive to start negotiating for real.
- with files from AM800's The Morning Drive