UPDATE
NSCC strike avoided
Classes to continue Tuesday
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The NSCC Cumberland Campus in Springhill, Nova Scotia.
The Nova Scotia Community College says teachers won’t strike on Tuesday.
The province and the Nova Scotia Teachers Union have reached a tentative agreement that will see all classes continue tomorrow. Details of the agreement will be revealed to teachers at union meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The NSTU, representing about 900 faculty members and support staff at the community college, will set a vote date tomorrow morning, said Angela Murray, Nova Scotia Teachers Union spokesperson.
The last-minute deal was struck less than 24 hours before staff were set to walk out.
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NSCC students, Mitchell Sanford, Katherine Imber and Student Body President Shawn Swinkels, share their thoughts on the tentative agreement between the Nova Scotia Teachers Union and the Nova Scotia Community College. Video: Amber Nicholson and James Whitehead
Many students, left waiting until the morning before the strike date, have begun picking up extra work shifts and making other plans, says Mitchell Sanford, a NSCC business management student.
"It's been stressful," said Sanford "a lot of the focus has been around teachers, not students."
“Students were expected to keep working as if nothing is happening.”
Shawn Swinkels, student president at the Waterfront campus, says students are not optimistic about the tentative agreement.
"Everyone was kind of panicking. It had the potential to be a very bad strike," he says.
The teachers union sent a notice to strike on Oct. 8 setting a strike date after negotiations with the province broke down in the first week of October.
The union is seeking a 2.9 per cent wage increase to match the increase the province settled on for the union's public schools earlier this year.
Darrel Dexter's NDP government has taken a hard-line approach to negotiations offering the union a seat at binding arbitration. The offer limited arbitration to granting no more than 1 per cent wage increases to NSCC teachers.
The move sent about 200 employees represented by the teachers union to legislature to protest their anger. Dexter's government will be under pressure as union representatives feel out the brand new NDP government.
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