OPSEU members walk the picket line outside Fanshawe College on Oxford Street on the first day of their strike yesterday. (Morris Lamont, LFP)

STRATFORD (Wednesday, March 8)-- Premier Dalton McGuinty said here his government will soon move to make colleges and universities more accountable for the funding they receive -- a key demand of college staff who walked off the job early yesterday.

McGuinty's promise came on the first day of a province wide strike by instructors, counsellors and other staff at Fanshawe College and Ontario's 23 other community colleges.

The provincial government "will be putting as much pressure as we can on both sides to come to the table and stay at the table and bargain in the interests of our students, who deserve to be able to go to school," McGuinty said.

McGuinty said the strike was particularly disappointing, given that his government recently allocated $6.2 billion for a five-year plan to hire more professors and improve resources at Ontario's colleges and universities.

Minister of Colleges and Universities Chris Bentley of London will soon announce a new agency that will monitor long-term accountability agreements colleges and universities must sign in exchange for new money, McGuinty said.

The agency will measure improvements in class sizes and the amount of time instructors spend with students, he said.

The strike by more than 9,000 college staff is the first major work disruption McGuinty's government has faced since it was elected.

Students who were met by pickets at the entrances to Fanshawe College yesterday said they are worried about losing their year if the strike drags on.

The walkout affects 150,000 college students in Ontario, including 15,000 who attend Fanshawe.

Paddy Musson, president of Local 110 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union that represents striking Fanshawe staff, said the strike could have been avoided if colleges had hired more teachers, as McGuinty's government had asked.

"If the colleges had paid heed to McGuinty's directions regarding the new money going into the system, we wouldn't be on strike now," she said.

The union said college staff walked off the job to back demands for more full-time teachers and smaller class sizes.

She charged Fanshawe didn't hire new teachers with the first funds it received under the government's plan to beef up staffing, but instead used $5.5 million to replace retiring teachers.

"We need real accountability," Musson said.

College president Howard Rundle said Musson was wrong because the college hired 14 new teachers under the interim agreement it signed in return for the funding.

"We paid heed all right because we had to sign an agreement with McGuinty's government before we could get the money," he said.

McGuinty, who visited Northwestern secondary school and Stratford city hall, said if the dispute is protracted, the colleges relations commission may ask the government to step in if it deems students are in jeopardy of losing their academic year.

Bentley said it's frustrating that the union would stage a walkout just as the province is making great strides in post-secondary education.

"There hasn't been a better time for the parties in the college system in more than a decade," he said.

"Funds for the net new hiring of faculty, funds for increased student supports, funds for new equipment -- no longer are colleges talking about what programs to cut. They're talking about building."

The government's priority is ensuring students return to classes, Bentley said.

He said he'll be seeking advice from colleges commission on when the school year could be jeopardized before deciding whether to intervene.

The strike began when OPSEU refused an offer from college management that would have raised the top annual salary for professors to $94,000, with no increase in workload.

HERE ARE SOME QUICK FACTS ON THE STRIKE:

The colleges have been negotiating with OPSEU for more than a year. The key elements of the colleges offer to OPSEU are:

- A 12.6 per-cent increase in salary over four years, which would move the new maximum salary to $94,277 by April 2009.

- An increase over four years for two-step co-coordinators (faculty who have additional co-coordinating duties) that would move their new maximum salary to $99,303.

- No increase to workload, which would maintain the average teaching time in the classroom at 14 hours.

- The last time there was a college teacher strike in the province was 1989. It lasted for almost a month.

- Source: Sun Media