Contract talks are continuing for a third straight day today in an attempt to end a strike at Ontario colleges that has locked more than 150,000 students out of their classes since March 7.

The negotiations are taking place under a media blackout. But prior to resuming on Monday morning, the two sides had waged a public battle over the key issues — class size and faculty workload.

The union's message is clear and concise: Improve the quality of education by reducing class sizes through the hiring of more full-time teachers to lower the student-instructor ratio. It also wants class sizes, now averaging about 28, trimmed to 25, and the percentage of part-timers cut from its current level of about one-third to 20 per cent over the life of the new contract.

"This isn't a strike for more money or less workload," Ted Montgomery, head of OPSEU's bargaining committee, said in an interview early in the strike.

"It's about one issue — quality."

He said meeting those demands would cost the colleges $75 million to $90 million.

The colleges, represented at the bargaining table by the College Compensation and Appointments Council, maintained at the outset of this round of talks that its pre-strike position — a 12.6 per cent wage increase over four years to a maximum $94,277 by April, 2009, and no increased workload from the current average of 14 hours per week in the classroom — is a good offer.

OPSEU has countered that the salary issue is misleading because the average for a full-time teacher is about $76,000 a year. It also accuses the colleges of provoking the strike by coming back to the bargaining table on the eve of the strike with a proposal to remove provisions limiting faculty workloads, which the union says it expects to see increase if the number of students per class is reduced.

While admitting that any additional money from Queen's Park would make it easier to get a deal, Montgomery insists the colleges already have enough money as part of a five-year, $6.2 billion investment in post-secondary education made by the province in last May's budget.

Even with last year's budget, Ontario college students remain the lowest-funded per capita in Canada.

The colleges say the union numbers just don't add up. While the new funding sounds impressive, management representatives say it's important to note that a good chunk of the money was committed to student aid, apprenticeship and training initiatives rather than day-to-day operations.

"We've still got a $200 million gap between our two positions," Joy Warkentin, chair of the colleges' bargaining committee, said before talks resumed Monday. "So, both sides have to look at creative solutions."

Meanwhile, Centennial College instructor John Stammers, 62, remained in Sunnybrook hospital with life-threatening head injuries yesterday. He hit his head on the pavement after tumbling off a car as it went through a picket line at the school's Progress Campus in Scarborough on Monday.