Fanshawe students to hold rally Friday as frustration builds over college strike

Frustration is starting to reach its peak among Fanshawe students as the ongoing faculty strike approaches its fifth week.

A rally has been planned for Friday afternoon in London on Oxford Street. For students, the message is clear. They want to go back to class.

Like many college students across the province, Bethany Baglieri put her life on hold to go back to school.

But plans changed when faculty went on strike in mid-October, pausing her post-secondary education.

That’s why Baglieri and Michelle Wright organized the rally, to try and force the issue after talks broke down earlier this week.

She just wants to get back to class.

“I want to make sure people know that we’re not against the teachers. We have amazing professors who we’ve been in contact with, they are on our side. It’s up to the union and it’s up to the people who are the head of the faculty to make a decision quickly so we can get back to the classroom,” said Baglieri.

Students were able to complete their semester during the previous three college faculty strikes.

The strike, which involves college professors, instructors, counselors, and librarians, began Oct. 15 and has left 500,000 full time and part time students out of class.

Striking faculty will vote on the latest offer from the College Employer Council next week.

Talks between the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents the striking workers, and the council, broke down Monday.

Sonia Del Missier, who chairs the colleges’ bargaining team, says the board has ordered the faculty vote to be held from November 14th to 16th.

The union is calling for its members to reject the offer.

Bagliari says students haven’t had much of a choice during the labour dispute, other than wait and hope it ends soon.

“We need something heard from the students. It’s been all about the union and the faculty and what they’re talking about but nobody is really talking about the students. Nobody is actually giving us a voice and we think we’re the only ones that are suffering,” she said.

Another Fanshawe College student, Angela Oakley, has started an online petition, calling on Premier Kathleen Wynne to intervene with back-to-work legislation.

“We, the students, are not bargaining chips but we are voters. We call for an immediate return to work with back-to-work legislation to end to this lengthy strike,” Oakley writes in the petition. “If we lose our term, Kathleen Wynne should lose hers as well. We the undersigned pledge that if this strike continues and students lose their term as a result, we will vote against Kathleen Wynne in the June 2018 election.”

OPSEU president Warren “Smokey” Thomas called for the council to come back to the bargaining table while the labour board prepares for the vote.

OPSEU bargaining team chair JP Hornick says the colleges came back to the union Monday night with changes to the offer that she says “undermine” contract faculty and create “unlimited overtime,” among other measures the union would not accept.

Friday’s student rally at Fanshawe College is set for 1 p.m.