SECONDARY TEACHERS VOTE IN FAVOUR OF STRIKE ACTION
By Kirk Winter
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation has joined the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Federation and the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario in voting overwhelmingly to strike.
OSSTF educational workers voted 92 percent in favour of strike action, and the Federation’s teacher and occasional teacher members voted 95.5 percent in favour of strike.
“This is a powerful mandate from our members, and it sends a compelling message,” said OSSTF President Harvey Bischoff. “Our members are committed to defending the quality of education in Ontario against a government that is determined to undermine it, and they are absolutely prepared to defend their ability to provide the best possible learning environment for the students they work with.”
“They are also telling us, quite emphatically, that they are losing patience with the government that refuse to engage in meaningful discussion about major issues that affect the quality of learning in their schools,” continued Bischoff. “We gave our notice to bargain seven months ago, but we are still waiting for even one meaningful, serious response to our key proposals that address the quality of publicly funded education.”
Although OSSTF now has a clear mandate from its members, the union has yet to announce that it will be taking job action.
“We are at the bargaining table today and not on the picket line as we could have been. This is a choice we made for this week because we remain committed to looking for solutions through negotiations. I sincerely hope the Ford government seeks the same and isn’t intent on creating additional unnecessarily conflict,” Bischoff concluded.
Conservative insiders are not hopeful of labour peace as they have painted a picture of a Premier girding for a showdown with the teachers’ federations. One Conservative, close to the Premier’s office, reported that Ford was furious having to settle with CUPE educational workers earlier in October to avoid any embarrassing circumstances that would have hurt the federal Conservative’s chances for success in October 21 federal election.
Those same Conservatives have reported that Ford harbours a “visceral hatred” for Sam Hammond, the ETFO leader and Harvey Bischoff, the leader of OSSTF. They shared that Ford believes “that he can win the fight against the teachers' unions in the court of public opinion and welcomes the opportunity to retake his place on the Ontario political stage after being sidelined for more than four months by the federal election.”
Those with knowledge of Conservative discussions have suggested that the Ford approach will take a page out of the Mike Harris playbook by going after the English Catholic Teachers Federation who is viewed as a weak link in OTF, the overall teachers governing body.
Informed speculation continues that Harris split the teachers unions in 1997 by threatening the Catholic federation with the end of funding for separate schools. Conservative insiders have shared that there is a slowly forming consensus within “Ford Nation” that the merging of the two different school boards needs to be revisited at the earliest possible opportunity.
Another former Conservative official with experience in the Harris government has floated the scenario of Ford “allowing the strikes to go on for two to three weeks and then have the teachers return after New Year's with their lost pay cheques paying for some minor improvements to the collective agreement.”
ETFO has suggested their work to rule will begin against board initiatives almost immediately and further job actions are expected within a matter of days.
Sometime in early December, virtually every school across the province of Ontario could be shuttered, and neither side expects the differences between the two sides to be settled quickly.