The City of Sarnia is closely monitoring the faculty strike at Lambton College.
Picketers are slowing down those wanting to go to the college or Progressive Auto Sales Arena (PASA), causing traffic backups at both the London Rd. and Wellington St. entrances.
Parks and Recreation Director Rob Harwood says they've had open lines of communication with user groups.
"We sent correspondence out to all of the user groups from PASA over the weekend anticipating that there could be a strike, and of course, now there is," says Harwood. "We again reached out to the groups Monday, just to let people know that we are [experiencing] about a 30 minute delay getting into the arena. Obviously, there's not a whole lot we can do as a group to change that, but the college are interested in working with us and understand the troubles that our patrons will experience."
The strike will have no impact on Sarnia Sting fans this week. The team is on the road with games in North Bay, Sudbury and Barrie.
Around 12,000 faculty members at 24 Ontario Community Colleges, including 126 full time and 79 partial load faculty at Lambton College, walked off the job Monday.
Lambton College remains open, but all regular programs and apprenticeship programs, along with continuing education courses and field and clinical placements are cancelled for the duration of the walk out.
The Ontario Early Years Centre is operating as normal and most resources including the library, the family wellness centre, bookstore, and computer labs will stay open.
Sources have also told BlackburnNews Sarnia that the majority of trade unionists working on the $40-million expansion at the college have not crossed the picket lines.
-With files from Lee Michaels
