School and union officials are warning Ontario's 24 colleges, including Confederation College, could be closed by labour strife as early as the middle of next month.The colleges say the Ontario Public Service Employees Union could trigger a strike by 10,000 college faculty as early as
September 15th if a strike vote goes ahead on September 10th.
And OPSEU says the colleges will be in a position to lock out faculty on the same date.
A strike would disrupt the start of the school year for hundreds of thousands of students across the province.
Issues are a wage freeze demanded by the colleges, academic
freedom, the treatment of partial-load faculty, increased workload from online courses and other staffing requirements.