NSCC instructors poised for strike vote

Nova Scotia Community College instructors will take a strike vote next week that could affect nearly 26,000 full-time and part-time students, just weeks into their academic year.

The 900 instructors and support staff at the 13 campuses want the same 2.9 per cent raise that public school teachers received in April.

"This is an issue of fairness and equity," said Alexis Allen, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union.

"Every other public sector union received this and our community college colleagues have been a year, 13 months, without a contract and we're still just waiting for what every other sector received a year ago, so it is a little disconcerting," she said.

The college instructors will vote on Sept. 22.

Conciliation failed

Conciliation efforts failed in June after the conciliator declared an impasse over the equity issue.

The new NDP government has remained silent on whether it will give community college instructors the same two year-deal the previous government gave teachers in the public schools, according to the teachers union.

Nova Scotia's 10,000 public school teachers endorsed a tentative agreement reached between the teachers union and the provincial government on Feb. 6. It called for a 2.9 per cent increase in each of the two years of the agreement, which will expire on July 31, 2010.

There had been 17 bargaining sessions and three days of talks, assisted by a conciliation officer.