By Michelle Dorey Forestell | The Kingstonist
When United Steelworkers (USW) Local 2010 released a news brief titled “Steelworkers Fed Up: Queen’s Pushes Us To The Brink – Strike Deadline March 8,” Kingstonist reached out to the local’s President Kelly Orser to learn more about why the union is preparing to strike, and what it would take to keep the Steelworkers off the picket line.
According to Orser, USW’s main issues with its employer, Queen’s University, are wages, job security, and workload. Steelworkers Local 2010 has represented Queen’s University support staff since 2010 and currently represents 1,400 support staff workers. This is the first potential strike in its history. In February 2025, the union’s members voted 96 per cent in favour of the strike, with the deadline being Friday, Mar. 8 at 11:59 p.m. and potential picketing starting Monday, Mar. 10, 2025. The employer has committed to bargaining sessions on March 6, 7, and 8.
Wages, Orser shared, have become a concern for two main reasons: “First, we need retroactive pay for the last three years of our contract that has expired, and second, we need monetary gains for the new contract that we’re trying to renew for the upcoming three years.”
Ontario’s Bill 124, formally known as the Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019, was a piece of legislation that capped wage increases for public sector employees in Ontario at one per cent per year for three years, essentially limiting their collective bargaining power. However, the bill was deemed unconstitutional by the Ontario Superior Court, and that decision was later upheld by the Ontario Court of Appeal, effectively repealing the bill in its entirety due to its violation of the right to freedom of association under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“Employees who were unionized — it did not include managers and senior leadership, that sort of thing — had to take a wage cap in each of our three years,” Orser explained. “So we would have had a raise each July 2022, 2023, and 2024.”
“Halfway through our last contract,” she continued, “Bill 124 was declared unconstitutional. So at that time, we went back to the employer and said, ‘Hey, will you reopen just our wage packages to adjust these at one percent?’… and Queen’s refused… The Ford government… said, ‘for unionized employees, because you have the right to bargain, sort this out with your employer the next time you go to the table.'”
“So for us, that’s now,” said Orser.
She emphasized that the increases in the cost of living have become unmanageable as wages have not kept up. So the union is also seeking “healthy, appropriate, fair wage increases for the upcoming three years.”
“In the last three years around Bill 124, Queen’s originally said that their managers and senior leadership would also, just like their union employees, do the one per cent freeze for each of three years. They ended up only doing it for one, maybe two years. Then last July 2024, when the five-figure salary support staff were receiving one per cent, the six-figure salaried managers and senior leadership received 4.25 and 4.75 [per cent raises],” Orser said, noting that “if the community knew” of these disparities, it might impact how the union’s requests are perceived.
Orser also pointed to the university’s well-known budget deficit as a sore point.
“Essentially, Queen’s has several pots of money, if you will. They have endowment funds, trust funds, operating budgets, research accounts, etc… So they have lots of money in all of these other pots, but in the operating budget, this is the one pot of money where they’re declaring a budget deficit, and that’s the pot of money all Steelworkers are paid out of: the operating budget,” the union president explained.
“Over the last few years, the employer has chosen to transfer money out of that operating budget and transfer it into budgets for future buildings like residence buildings for students and that sort of thing. They’ve made a conscious choice to transfer money out, put the operating budget in a deficit situation, and put us in a really difficult situation. So essentially, they’re picking buildings and infrastructure over people.”
On that point, Orser segued into its second area of concern: job security.
“In the calendar year 2024, we had record layoffs. So to address this budget deficit, support staff and Steelworkers were hit the hardest. There were massive layoffs last year, and so again, it’s the five-figure salary folks that are that are getting hit the hardest,” she said.
Because of the hiring freeze and this budget deficit, Orser said, USW 2010 has lost over 130 positions in the last 18 months.
“That’s 10 per cent of our bargaining unit,” she emphasized, saying this has stoked fear in the workers, leading them to become “concerned with even talking to their managers about things like overtime and lieu time.”
This is a concern because, despite the cuts, all of the work is still being done. As she puts it, “The work didn’t disappear; the people did.”
This leads to the Steelworkers’ third concern: workload. Orser continued,
“You have Steelworkers trying to do a job and a half, maybe two jobs because if there are fewer people, fewer folks in their departments, their units, their areas, to do the work, everyone has to pick up the slack. So that is also causing a workload issue,” Orser continued.
The USW have critical concerns about burnout, having already seen increased sick leaves.
“It has a trickle [down] effect, right?” she submitted.
“USW workers are attempting to help keep the university running and provide exemplary customer service to the students. I mean, we’re there because of the students, right?”
But, Orser said, they are doing so on suppressed wages with critically increased workloads and staff shortages, and “things have really declined at the university over the last three or four years.”
The employer has agreed to return to the bargaining table on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, March 6, 7, and 8. Orser said, “Our legal strike deadline is Saturday night, 11:59 p.m. on March 8.”
“And if we do end up going on strike, we expect it to be shocking to the families and the community. We want the workers to be home on Sunday, to spend that time with their families, and wrap their heads around it. Then Steelworkers would hit the picket lines at 8 a.m. Monday, March the 10th,” she relayed.
If the 1,200 Steelworkers go out to picket lines, it will likely have a significant impact on operations at the university, but Orser says, “It’s never happened, so it remains to be seen.”
However, she points out that Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) Local 901 (Unit 1) at Queen’s, which represents approximately 2,000 graduate students who are employed part-time as graduate teaching assistants, teaching fellows, graduate research assistants, and JD/MD-enrolled students (students doing a combined medical/legal program) employed as teaching assistants, is also poised to strike. They will be able to legally strike, and the university will be legally able to lock them out, as of Monday, Mar.10, 2025, at 12:01 a.m.
“The deadline dictates that if both locals were to go on strike, 3,400 workers at Queen’s will hit the picket line. Can the university operate?… It’s never happened before, but it will impact the students across the university. So the students, sadly, could potentially suffer if the employer doesn’t take this seriously,” Orser expressed.
Kingstonist reached out to Queen’s University at midday on Tuesday, Mar. 4, 2025, and the university gave a response around 7 p.m. the same day. But, rather than respond to our request for an interview or statement on how the potential strike will impact students and their contingency plan, Queen’s chose to publish a statement on the Labour News portion of the university’s website.
The university’s statement reads, in part, “Negotiations are ongoing, and the university remains cautiously optimistic that the parties involved can accomplish tentative agreements to renew these collective agreements.”
“Requests from both unions saw the Ministry of Labour issue No Board Reports in February. These reports began a countdown that will allow general support staff represented by USW Local 2010 to legally call a strike and the employer may legally initiate a lockout, as of Sunday, March 9, at 12:01 am,” the statement reads.
“Similarly, PSAC Local 901 Unit 1 will be able to legally strike, and the university will be legally able to lock them out, as of Monday, March 10, at 12:01 am. In either case, this does not mean strikes or lockouts will necessarily occur on or after these dates.”
The university says it “respects the bargaining process, but has contingency plans prepared in the event of a strike or lockout to minimize the impact on the university community.”
“The university has begun sharing this information directly with students, staff and faculty, noting if there is a strike or lockout, the university will remain open, and classes are expected to continue as scheduled. All students are expected to continue their studies, including attending classes,” the statement from Queen’s concludes.
“All non-striking bargaining unit members, even those whose unions are actively in collective bargaining with the university or are a member of PSAC or USW but a different bargaining unit than PSAC Unit 1 or USW general support staff, are expected to continue to work as per Ontario’s Labour Relations Act.”
