(TORONTO, June 28, 2006) – Ontario’s colleges are pleased with the arbitrator’s ruling released today that establishes a new four-year contract with faculty at the province’s 24 colleges.

“The arbitrator’s decision is consistent with the offer that colleges had made to faculty and it provides a good package for our faculty,” said Dr. Rick Miner, the chair of the colleges’ committee of presidents. “This decision recognizes the excellent and important work done by our faculty and the quality education that our faculty provides to the students.” The arbitrator, William Kaplan, was appointed following a three-week strike at the colleges in March.

The key highlights of Kaplan’s ruling today are:

• A salary increase of 15.3 per cent over four years, which will move the maximum salary to $96,529 by 2009 (the first year is retroactive to 2005). The colleges had proposed a 12.6-per-cent salary increase

• No change to workload

• The establishment of pilot projects and a task force to study workload

• No change to class size, which is currently an average system-wide of 28 students per class

• Incorporating the extra hour of out-of-class assistance that had been previously agreed to by the parties.

Miner said there is a recognized need for further investments into colleges, and it will be essential in the years ahead that governments support college education and training. As Premier Dalton McGuinty has said, even with new funding, Ontario colleges still receive the lowest per-capita investments of any province in Canada.

“Ontario must make a serious commitment to the education and training of our workforce, and that requires significant investments,” Miner said. “We must ensure that education and training become priorities in Ontario.”

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For more information:
Rob Savage
Director of Communications
Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario
(416) 596-0744, ext. 239