Ontario’s public elementary school teachers begin the next phase of their work-to-rule campaign on Monday.
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One-day strikes are also a possibility starting in October if the province doesn’t return to the bargaining table, although those details haven’t been finalized.
The union’s proposed work-to-rule plan lists several steps teachers may take, including wearing union buttons, caps or T-shirts on Wednesdays, nicknamed by the union as “Wynne Wednesdays”.
The union representing teachers in Francophone schools has also reached a tentative agreement, leaving ETFO as the only teachers’ union without a contract. With two deals ratified late last week, Education Minister Liz Sandals said Friday in a statement that the province’s negotiators will only go back to the table when ETFO accepts the basics of the current proposal.
“It’s being personalized because that’s a political tactic”, she said. Meanwhile, the Toronto District School Board’s spokesman, Ryan Bird, has said that he is now considering the effects of possible rotating strikes.
“What’s really important is that we explain to kids that this doesn’t mean that their teachers are mad at them; it doesn’t mean that their teachers are not wanting to be there”.
Agreements reached in August with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association contain raises of 1.5 per cent plus another one-per-cent bonus.
However, ETFO president Sam Hammond has said that public elementary-school teachers have different needs than other teachers and didn’t want a “cookie-cutter” deal.
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The next phase of the job action by Ontario’s 70,000 public elementary school begins this week. “I don’t think the teachers in my granddaughters’ school are mad at me”. “It’s about, how do we get an agreement that’s in the best interest of the kids in this province”. Strike action by its members could close some schools for health and safety reasons.
