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“Students deserve quality services kept in-house — not contracted out — and done by the support staff who know how to do the job and have institutional knowledge,” the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU) said in announcing the strike to its 10,000 college members early Thursday.

Outside Humber North College campus, striking staff and supporters, including student workers and faculty members, walked along Humber College Boulevard carrying signs that read “On Strike to Save Jobs!” and “Cut the Profits Not the Wages!”

Some of the picketers blocked intersections leading into the college’s parking lot and bus terminal, leading to backups as commuter students and others tried to get on campus. Despite the traffic jams, some passing cars honked their horns in solidarity with the workers.

“This is a watershed moment,” OPSEU president JP Hornick told the media at a press conference outside Humber on Thursday morning. 

“This fight touches all of us,” they continued. “We’re the college community support staff, faculty, students and allies all together. Because without us, you cut the heart out of education.”

OPSEU said it is fighting for job security as colleges grapple with serious financial challenges that have already led to layoffs, program cuts and campus shutdowns across the province.

Graham Lloyd, CEO of the College Employer Council, said schools are disappointed no deal was reached, but that they could not accept the “poison pills” the union wanted, including a guarantee of no job losses.

The council, which is the official bargaining agent for the province’s 24 public colleges, said that when “enrolments and revenues are down by as much as 50 per cent, OPSEU continues to insist on demands that are fiscally impossible.”

Lloyd said asking for “a complete ban on campus closures, college mergers and staff reductions could force colleges into bankruptcy ... (the council) has repeatedly advised OPSEU that these types of demands simply can never be agreed to. ”

Ontario’s colleges have been hit hard by federal cuts to international students, who pay several times more in tuition, which schools had come to rely on to boost revenues.

They are also struggling with an ongoing tuition freeze and provincial funding they say has not kept up with their actual costs.

Christine Kelsey, who chairs the college support staff bargaining team, said before the strike deadline that “the landscape has changed dramatically since we started bargaining. We are trying to stabilize the system — not just for this term, but for generations to come.”

The full-time college support staffers represented by OPSEU hold a variety of jobs, including disability services, library technologists, trades, co-op placement co-ordinators, food services and IT.

About 10,000 jobs have been lost in the college sector over the past year alone, out of a total of about 60,000 staff and faculty.

Kelsey said the job losses are “causing chaos for students and communities.”

OPSEU, in an online update to members sent around dinnertime Wednesday, told members that in the event of a strike, it would stand up for “not just full-time support staff, but also part-time support staff, and faculty, who choose not to cross our picket lines” urging its members in other bargaining units to support the job action.

The college council said its final offer included a $145 million boost to wages and benefits — including a two per cent wage increase in each year of the contract — plus some job security guarantees tied to the use of new technology, and paid leave for members dealing with domestic and sexual violence. 

It also improved severance payments for workers who are laid off. 

Given the impasse, Lloyd said since the two sides “remain far apart on a number of important issues, we strongly encourage the union to agree to mediation, arbitration to help us reach an agreement.”

He said “the work that the employees, these support staff, do is extremely important. We have put a proposal to them that is extremely fair.”

Faculty, he added, are expected to report for work. They landed a three-year deal with the colleges following arbitration, a route the council is now urging the support staff union to consider. 

While the majority of classes are expected to continue as normal, MiloÅ¡ Vasić, sociology professor and president of the Humber Faculty Union, said during Thursday’s press conference that the faculty union was encouraging its members to show up at the picket line.

“Only we, the workers in the college system, can save the system from itself,” he said.

During an interview with the Star after the press conference, Vasić added that faculty should avoid cancelling or moving classes online to “embrace the chaos” and make sure students see support staff striking when coming to campus.

Along with some faculty members, OPSEU’s Hornick said that unionized public bus workers also agreed to show solidarity with the striking college staff.

“There is no bus that will cross a picket line into a campus in Ontario,” Hornick said as a couple of TTC buses honked their horns while driving by.

While buses weren’t driving in to the Humber College bus terminal, drivers still let students off along the sidewalk.

Lloyd said the union demands around job guarantees “are not a pathway to a negotiated deal,” and that colleges “will go back to the table anytime, provided OPSEU bargains with a view to get an actual negotiated agreement, or mediation, arbitration.”

In a statement Thursday morning, the Ontario NDP said the Ford government’s refusal to invest in post-secondary education has “created one of the worst crises Ontario’s colleges have ever faced.”

“We’re calling on Doug Ford to step up: don’t let our public colleges languish, don’t allow even more jobs to disappear under your watch, and don’t gamble away our province’s future,” the statement read.

The Star previously reported that the province is working to revamp post-secondary education funding, including for colleges, as early as next spring.