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w w w .i n si d eH A LT O N .c o m O A K V IL LE B EA V ER W ed ne sd ay , A ug us t 31 , 2 01 1 4 By Nathan Howes OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF It may not be business as usual for Sheridan students when they go back to school next week. When the clock strikes 12:01 a.m. Thursday, 444 support staff from Sheridan College may be on strike with nearly 8,000 others from 23 other Ontario colleges. The current collective agreement between the College Employer Council (CEC) and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) is set to expire Aug. 31. On July 14, OPSEU members voted 77 per cent in favour of a strike mandate. Discussions are set to take place for a final time today to try and avoid a strike. OPSEU represents the support staff in 24 colleges across Ontario that fill many non-teaching jobs, from the library and financial aid staff, to information technology (IT) support workers, janitors and lab technicians. fCathi Berge, director o fSheridans human resources, said i there is a strike, the school has a contingency plan that will allow them to continue offering support services and students will not be affected. We actually have full contin- gency plans in place. So we will be open and our students will be at school, said Berge. We basically would be staffing with our non- union staff to keep the operations fgoing outside of teaching, and o course our faculty will not be on strike, so they will be doing the regular teaching duties. Berge is hopeful that a strike can be averted ahead of time. Negotiations have been ongoing since June with OPSEU, who are bargaining for job stability, benefits and a 3 per cent wage increase, according to a press release. The College Student Alliance (CSA) issued a statement in the release calling on both sides to stay at the bargaining table until an agreement is reached. The colleges and the union settled the last two support staff contracts in the last days before a strike deadline. There is a number of issues and collective bargaining (that) really devolves into two chapters. The non-monetary collective agreement flanguage, rights and that type o thing, and of course the monetary issues being the actual pay increases and benefits, said Jay Jackson, pres- ident of OPSEU Local 245. What we're seeing is an erosion of those jobs with the employers doing more contracting out, and there are part-time workers creating more part-time, less valued work, and thats becoming more of an alarming issue for us, he added. At the Trafalgar and Davis cam- puses, local 245 support staff has geared up for a potential strike. Trailers are now in place and sup- port staffs at both campuses have prepared their signs in anticipation. Jackson said its not one particu- lar issue that theyre just focused on, but rather its sort of like a shopping cart of issues, as some things fall off the table and some they hang on to. I think really what this fight is fall about is respecting the value o support staff work and recognizing that these are jobs that are not (menial), said Jackson. The more workers we have that can be sus- tained at colleges mean the hard- ware stores are going to have anoth- er customer in the store buying a lawnmower, etc. Support staff strike looms at Sheridan College See Support page 5