The Ontario Labour Relations Board has set the date for the ratification vote on the Full-time Tentative Agreement. The vote is set to start at noon on September 28 and will go to 5 pm September 29. It will be an electronic vote, and members will be getting voting PINs and information through their Mohawk College emails.
There have been some questions around the ratification vote, and we wanted to clarify what would happen if there is No vote.
The Colleges Collective Bargaining Act stipulates 3 conditions need to be met for the bargaining unit to go on strike:
- There can’t be a Collective Agreement – This condition has been met.
- The Conciliator report has been issued with no board report – This condition has not been met.
- There has been a vote with clear language to authorise a strike on the ballot – This condition has not been met. The ratification vote will not have a clear question around strike, it will rather have a simple ‘I accept the offer’ and ‘I reject the offer’.
In other words, if there is a No vote, the bargaining team will have to go back to the table and try to address the issues the members feel were not addressed in the current tentative deal. If the Team feels necessary, they will request a conciliator and could ask for a strike vote.
We hope this clarifies the questions around this topic
