St. Clair College faculty are keeping students in mind, as picketing begins at Chatham's Thames Campus as part of a province-wide strike.
One of the picketers, Mickey Parr, is an instructor in the college's paramedic program. He says he wishes the negotiations didn't have to result in a strike, but it's important the key issues are addressed.
"The main thing is we want fairness among the full-time staff and the part-time and the contract staff to be able to have maybe a 50/50 balance," says Parr.
Parr says it's not all about the wages, though.
"We want to be able to control what's going on in the classrooms so we can have fairness to the students, as well as the instructors or the professors that are here," he says.
He adds that it's important to maintain consistency in education during the strike.
"Not only are we interested in ourselves, but we're really interested in the students. We don't want the students to lose anything. We want them to get their education and not have to go into the next semester and have lost anything. Especially with ours, we do the paramedic program [and] it's hard to squeeze in being a good paramedic in three weeks when normally in takes three months," explains Parr.
Despite classes being cancelled during the strike, the college's vice president of communications and community relations, John Fairley, says campus facilities will remain open so students have access to materials and computers.
Around 12,000 faculty members at Ontario's 24 colleges went on strike on Monday after a last-minute offer was rejected by the College Employer Council.
Meantime, an online petition that's asking for a tuition rebate for students already has 59,000 signatures.
A paramedic student at Humber College started it on Change.org using #wepaytolearn.
It's demanding $30/day for full-time students and $20/day for part-time students for each day the strike continues.
