The union that represents faculty at Ontario's 24 public colleges is taking action against legislation that forced its members back to work, ending a five-week long strike.
The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) has filed a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge against the Ontario government's Bill 178, the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Labour Dispute Resolution Act.
The back-to-work legislation was passed on Sunday, effectively returning over half-a-million students to the classroom and ending the longest college strike in Ontario's history. The bill gives OPSEU and the colleges 90 days to settle the current contract dispute at arbitration.
OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas said the union is challenging the legislation in court because it believes the bill violated the faculty's Charter rights, specifically Section 2 (d) which protects freedom of association.
"For over a decade, the Supreme Court of Canada has viewed collective bargaining as a protected right under the Charter," Thomas said in a news release. "More recently, the court has extended that protection to the right to strike.
"In the case of the colleges, the provincial government had the power to direct the employer to make the moves necessary to bargain a settlement," he said. "The government chose legislation instead. They trampled on the right to collective bargaining when they clearly had other choices."
The Liberal government made moves to implement back-to-work legislation after unionized faculty voted 86% against the College Employer Council’s latest offer on November 16.
Thomas said Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne met with both sides following the vote, and gave them three hours to settle the strike before attempting to table legislation.
"The government never gave collective bargaining an honest chance after the contract was rejected," Thomas said. "That three-hour deadline was a sham designed to provide legal cover for legislation that was already a foregone conclusion. Instead of directing the colleges to settle, the government let them walk away from the table, then came back with a hammer."