About 10,000 full-time support staff at Ontario colleges, including Belleville’s Loyalist College, are now on strike.

The Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU) had set a strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. Thursday. Picket lines followed within hours.

The union and the College Employer Council (CEC) failed to reach an agreement by that time, triggering the strike. The council represents 24 publicly-funded colleges in Ontario.

Union officials claimed in a news release the council “walked away from the table with remaining proposals unanswered – leaving the union alone at the table for six hours up until the deadline.”

“We’ve lost 10,000 jobs across the system this year alone, and more than 650 programs in every community across the province,” said Christine Kelsey, an assistive tech

See Full Page