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Teachers accept final offer and end strike talk
Thurday February 12, 2009
- Brampton Guardian
Ontario’s elementary school teachers accepted a government offer Thursday afternoon and eased concerns about a potential provincial strike.
Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) President David Clegg formally accepted the provincial government’s deal during a 3 p.m. news conference.
The union’s decision comforts parents and students at the Peel District School Board and other Ontario boards who feared elementary schools could have been closed by a province-wide teachers strike as early as next month.
The federation seemed on the path to a walkout, until Education Minister Kathleen Wynne presented the union and Ontario school boards with a new funding offer Tuesday. Repackaged specifically to avert a strike, the government is promising teachers $700 million to support four-year agreements and a 10.4 per cent salary increase. According to the ministry, teachers’ demands for more preparation time and money for increased supervision are addressed as well as calls for smaller class sizes and more teachers.
Teachers and Ontario school boards had until 4 p.m. Thursday to respond to the offer.
Talks between ETFO and the Ontario Public School Boards Association (OPSBA), which represents the province’s school boards, had failed to produce agreement on a framework for negotiating new labour deals. OPSBA and other labour groups in Ontario public schools managed to come to terms on a framework providing those groups with four-year agreements that include a 12 per cent pay raise. High school teachers at public boards, as well as high school and elementary teachers at Catholic boards are among workers who found that deal acceptable.
Public school elementary teachers were the province’s lone holdouts. The provincial government eventually withdrew its offer to fund four-year contracts with 12 per cent pay increases for the teachers. Two year deals with a four per cent salary increase was what the elementary teachers were left to consider.
Clegg accused OPSBA of using the talks to seek clawbacks on contract gains the union made in previous bargaining years and had set a deadline of Feb. 13 for school boards to make acceptable proposals or risk triggering a strike vote by teachers.
Thursday, however, Clegg said the government’s latest offer was unanimously approved by the union executive, partially because the clawbacks sought by OPSBA were not included. Teacher supervision and planning time enhancements were also welcomed.
But Clegg noted the union had proposed a deal that allowed for the hiring of 1,500 more teachers while still maintaining the 10.4 per cent salary increase.
It is now up to local school boards and union representatives to negotiate individual collective agreements.
At the provincial level, the union will still be lobbying the government for funding levels that put elementary schools on par with high schools. According to ETFO, elementary schools were receiving about $711 less per a student than high schools.
OPSBA had already accepted the new government offer— calling it a reasonable deal in today’s economic climate that provides the school system with a welcome measure of stability.
“OPSBA appreciates the government’s efforts to bring about a reasonable, fully funded settlement,” said OPSBA Vice-President Loralea Carruthers. “Our students and parents are depending on all of us to find a compromise solution that ensures stable learning environments in our schools.”
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