The district head of the union representing Upper Grand District School Board elementary school teachers said his members have accepted a new contract deal with the government.
Doug Cook, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) District 18 and a member of the provincial executive, said the 1,150 elementary teachers with the Upper Grand were part of the 91 per cent of elementary teachers across Ontario who voted to accept the new deal.
The contract will give elementary teachers a two per cent salary increase next year, which Cook says puts them at par with Catholic teachers.
“It’s a deal we can live with … We can return to civil discussions, we can work toward common solutions in terms of a deal,” Cook said, referring to the deadlock between elementary teachers and the province when earlier this year the government imposed contracts, froze wages and eliminated the banking of sick days into retirement.
The new contract expires in August of next year when new contract talks will start.
“The intent is to equalize the salary grid and negotiate from the same base level,” Cook added. “We’re good with the deal. It mitigates the kinds of losses we were experiencing.”
The deal is a result of a shift in how the government negotiated with the ETFO.
According to Cook, talks originally opened with what he described as “bankruptcy lawyers” negotiating for the government. The negotiations led to imposed contracts and soured relations between the Liberal government and elementary school teachers.
“It was a take-it-or-leave-it scenario,” Cook said of the way talks had been going before taking an about-turn. “It shifted to real talks on a variety of concerns that needed to be resolved.”
Under the deal, teachers will receive 11 non-bankable sick days per year. The deal also includes a 120-day short-term disability plan. A long-term disability plan, funded by teachers and administered locally, will switch to province-wide administration with funding still coming from teachers.
Guelph MPP and education minister Liz Sandals said in a News release, that she was “pleased that 91% of members of the ETFO have voted in favour of the agreement reached with our government.
“Together, we have come a long way toward rebuilding our relationship in a collaborative approach that re-affirms our shared commitment to delivering excellence for Ontario’s elementary school students.”
Sandals added, “The agreement brings added stability to the province’s classrooms while ensuring fairness and consistency across the education sector for all elementary teachers and support staff and school board.”
Cook said local bargaining with the Upper Grand is set to start and is slated to be completed by Aug. 29.
One of the main issues for discussion is teacher promotion from part-time to full-time status.
“It’s not uncommon for part-time teachers to take seven to eight years to move up to get full-time,” he said.
The union would like to see that time frame accelerated.
“That’s strictly a local level staffing issue,” Cook noted.
Bargaining on local issues does not allow strikes or lockouts if issues are not resolved.
“We’ll dedicate most our time (from now until the deadline) to local issues,” Cook concluded.
