With unionized Ontario college faculty in the midst of a bargaining round for a new collective agreement, this is a perfect time to discuss the role of a strike mandate in bargaining: what it is, what it isn’t, and why it is absolutely essential for college faculty to secure one.
It is time for workers to rethink the role a strike mandate plays in the bargaining process. Simply put, we need a paradigm shift here—a shift that will help employees push back against a false narrative often purveyed by the employer and that will make clear the two fundamental things a strike mandate provides: bargaining power and protection.
A strike mandate is step one
Often, we focus on correcting misinformation about the implications of a strike mandate. To be sure, this is important. When a membership votes ‘yes’ to authorizing its bargaining team to call a strike if necessary, this does not automatically trigger a strike. Bargaining can continue after a strike mandate has been secured. And even if labour action does follow, this need not be a full strike.
Other actions are possible, such as work-to-rule or rotating strikes. Furthermore, a strike vote is not an act of aggression. In fact, given the legislative framework and general climate in which college faculty bargaining takes place, it’s a normal part of the process. The employer might characterize it differently—by, say, labelling a strike vote an ‘escalation’—but it’s no such thing.
A strike mandate is a tool to advance demands
This points to the deeper shift in thinking that’s needed here. Rather than characterize a strike mandate only in terms of what it is not, we should also be thinking of it as something that actively lets faculty make their collective voice heard. It’s a tool that provides the membership and its elected bargaining team with strength and options in the bargaining process. The best way to think of it is this: a strike mandate is not something to seek after bargaining has proven unsuccessful; it is something to seek in order to increase the likelihood that bargaining will be successful. There are no guarantees, but a strong strike mandate is what gives faculty bargaining power. It keeps the employer at the table. It is a message to college management. It says that faculty support their own demands for a better college system and that management needs to listen and take those demands seriously.
In this round of bargaining, for example, faculty workload demands are supported by a Workload Task Force Report (a joint union-employer committee led by a neutral Chair). This report presents data from a landmark research study and confirms what faculty have been saying for years: with the transformation of their working conditions over time, faculty workload has increased significantly, and it’s time to update the workload formula (virtually unchanged since 1985) set out in the Collective Agreement. The arbitration award behind this task force and report indicates that its purpose is to inform bargaining this round. Not surprisingly, the colleges (through their bargaining agent, the College Employer Council) do not want to acknowledge the recommendations in the report and are downplaying their significance. The only way for this report to gain any traction in bargaining is for the membership to stand behind it and make it clear to the colleges that this report and the demands it backstops cannot be ignored. And the only way to do that is with a strong strike vote mandate.
Strong mandate means more power at the table
We see the link between a strong strike mandate and bargaining success time and again, in general and in the post-education sector specifically. For example, in late 2022 the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association voted decisively in favor of a strike mandate, with 91 percent support. No work stoppage ensued and a deal was reached following the strike vote. During their 2023 negotiations, the Brock University Faculty Association voted 97 percent in favor of a strike. This overwhelming strike mandate in hand, they returned to the bargaining table and reached a negotiated settlement. No strike action was taken. And, most recently, this past summer York University Faculty Association had an 83.8 percent turnout with a 92.3 percent ‘yes’ strike mandate vote. They did not go on strike and achieved a better contract result than what was on the table from the employer before the strike vote.
A strike mandate is a sign of strength. It is a demonstration of how organized and confident workers are. It is a way to ensure that the membership is educated and organized as bargaining continues. And it’s a signal to the Bargaining Team that the membership stands behind it as it sits across from the employer at the table.
No strike mandate signals weakness
That is the bargaining power aspect to a strike mandate, but there’s a second, equally important, reason a strong strike mandate is essential. A strike mandate also serves a necessary defensive role. It is the only protection workers have if the employer chooses to use one of its strongest tools: the unilateral imposition of a contract. Without a strike mandate workers can’t fight back. As David Doorey puts it in a recent posting on his long-running law blog The Law of Work, “without a successful strike vote in the bank, unionized workers are sitting ducks in the collective bargaining process.”
Without a strong strike mandate, employees are at the mercy of the employer and have no means to resist if the employer imposes terms and conditions upon them, something the colleges have the legal right to do under current legislation. The unilateral imposition of a contract is a sledgehammer tactic available to the employer and the only way for employees to protect themselves from it is to have a strike mandate in the bank.Raising this possibility is not fearmongering. The imposition of terms and conditions is exactly the action taken by the colleges in the last bargaining round in 2021. The colleges also imposed terms and conditions in 2009.
Not utilizing the one tool we have in the bargaining process when the employer has demonstrated a willingness to utilize such a powerful tool on its end simply makes no sense. A strike vote is how we activate that tool, and a strong strike mandate—a decisive ‘yes’ vote—is how we give that tool force as both leverage in bargaining and protection from the employer’s potential actions.
The power of a strong strike mandate
Let’s be clear: nobody wants a work stoppage. However, while it’s true that a strike vote doesn’t automatically trigger a strike–and that’s important to emphasize– we also have to remember that a strike mandate can’t be ‘sold’ to the membership as a way to avoid a strike. No one wants a strike but the membership has to mobilize and provide a strike mandate with the understanding that a withdrawal of their labour is a possibility. Otherwise the strike mandate will have no credibility in terms of advancing their demands.
This commitment and understanding on the part of the membership underpins the power of a strike mandate. Of course faculty would prefer to avoid a disruption to student learning. But students do not benefit from a situation in which faculty working conditions—which are student learning conditions—continue to deteriorate. Securing a strike mandate is the only way faculty can gain the bargaining power required to bring about much needed and long overdue improvements to the Ontario college system.
Did you like this article? Help us produce more like it by donating $1, $2, or $5. Donate
