Ontario’s elementary teachers’ union is applying for conciliation and holding strike votes as negotiations with the government to reach a new contract have stalled.
In a news conference in Toronto on Monday, Karen Brown, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), said that an independent third-party mediator would help “apply pressure” on the government to address key issues, which include violence in schools, hybrid learning and supports for special needs students.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce has urged the teachers’ unions to agree to binding arbitration, which means that outstanding issues are settled by an arbitrator.
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation said last week that it would ask its members to vote on agreeing to the process. The other three unions – ETFO, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association and the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens – said their items would not be addressed through binding arbitration.
Mr. Lecce said in a statement on Monday that the government’s efforts to negotiate a deal with ETFO, including private mediation and “a mutually-agreed-upon interest arbitrator,” have been rejected by the union.
“Our government has made every effort to get ETFO to avert a strike and keep kids in class,” Mr. Lecce stated. “Not even halfway through our negotiation with ETFO today, the union decided to proceed on the path to a needless strike, instead of negotiating a deal that keeps kids in class.”
ETFO will hold strike votes starting in mid-September. The union represents 83,000 public elementary teachers, occasional teachers, education support workers and early childhood educators.
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Ms. Brown told reporters on Monday that there have been 30 bargaining meetings with the government and no progress on issues that include salary, benefits and retaining and recruiting educators.
She said that binding arbitration was not a “viable” option given some of the issues her union wants addressed in bargaining.
“The Ford government is currently demanding significant cuts to sick leave, benefits, and professional judgment,” she said. “Binding arbitration would mean that the arbitrator is 100 per cent in control over what happens to those items, as members do not get to vote on the arbitrator’s decision, which is final and binding.”
The union has applied for conciliation with the Minister of Labour.
The contracts for all of Ontario’s education unions, including teachers’ unions, expired last August.
Last year, the province reached a deal with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 55,000 education workers. The deal gave workers a $1-an-hour wage hike each year of the four-year agreement, amounting to an average annual increase of 3.59 per cent. The average provincial funded teacher salary in 2021-22 was approximately $94,900, plus benefits. Actual teacher salaries vary across school boards.
The deal with CUPE ended a weeks-long drama that came to a head when Premier Doug Ford’s government passed legislation that used the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to strip the union of its right to strike. The government retracted the move after members walked out anyway and the labour movement vowed widespread protests.
Caroline Alphonso