ROTATING STRIKES TO HIT TLDSB
By Kirk Winter
OSSTF, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, will continue its legal job action against the province next Wednesday, December 11 if their contract dispute cannot be brought to a successful conclusion.
Public high schools right across the province were closed on December 4, and December 11 promises to be a little different.
Only nine boards will strike for one day, including Trillium Lakelands District School Board.
More than 50 percent of the public high school students in Ontario will not be at school Wednesday if OSSTF and the province cannot reach an amicable agreement.
Fruitless negotiations for 200 days have led to this stalemate. The government accuses the union of intransigence, and the union accuses the government of trying to provoke a fight with their teachers’ federations.
Many issues separate the two parties, but three in particular are incredibly problematic.
The province wants to change the funding model for secondary classrooms from 22:1 to 25:1.
The province wants secondary students to take a minimum of two full credits on-line, likely delivered by individuals who may not even be teachers on some kind of on-line platform not currently in existence.
The province would like to cap all provincial civil servants at a 1 percent raise. OSSTF would like to achieve cost of living, which is closer to 2 percent rather than 1 percent the province has legislated.
Those familiar with the talks add in issues like sick leave and hiring practice where the province and OSSTF have chosen to disagree.
Stephen Lecce, Ontario's Education Minister said that the legal job actions being taken by the teachers was “unacceptable, and that student success should never be the casualty of union escalation.”
Teachers close to the negotiations wonder if Lecce is up to the portfolio. Lecce, a graduate of a private Catholic high school, has no experience as a student with public high schools. He has no children in the system, and unlike many of his fellow Conservatives, he has never sat as a school board trustee or a volunteer on a school council.
Many Tories hoped Lecce, a public relations professional, would bring order in the messaging from the Education Ministry after the chaos inflicted on the Education portfolio by former Minister Lisa Thompson, a Bruce County goat farmer who sought constant confrontation with her ministry’s employees.
On December 6, Lecce launched an incendiary broadside against OSSTF on his personal Twitter account sharing the following, “It is time we name and shame OSSTF’s unacceptable demands: They want a $1.5 billion compensation increase, or else there will be further strikes. And I won’t sit idle.”
Some involved with the negotiations are unsure where Lecce is getting that number from, but believe it to be inaccurate.
Both sides appear to be digging in for a long and protracted strike that will soon be joined by three other teachers’ federations as they reach the stage where their job actions are legal also.