David Clegg is travelling a lot of miles these days. He went from Sarnia on Jan. 14 to Fergus the next day, and planned to spend the day after that in Sault Ste. Marie.
The reason is to explain to elementary public school teachers why their union rejected a contract that would have given them a 3% raise per year for four years. That works out to almost 13% over that period.
“The 12% salary increase has always been acceptable. What derailed the deal was the conditions placed on the money by [the Ontario Public School Board Association].”
Clegg said if the offer was accepted as the OPSBA sought, it would put elementary public school teachers about 2% behind teachers, from Catholic and French board.
But, he said the biggest snag was association officials wanted to strip other rights from the teachers’ contract, rights not negotiated away from other teachers in Ontario.
Clegg said union officials are well aware there is an economic recession hitting, and that some have asked why the contract offer was rejected.
But, he said, “When they asked what had to be given up … They were quite angry. The salary issue is not a problem. It’s a reasonable and fair offer.”
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario has been without a contract since last August, and has set Feb. 14 as a progress date, after which it plans to take some sort of job action. He said as of that date, all boards must table their progress reports for negotiating, and after that, the union can call a strike vote.
Clegg said in his statement there has been very little progress because local boards keep waiting for the provincial government to step in. “In virtually every case, they have chosen not to table their full bargaining positions and have been reserving their right to do so at some later time.”
He noted Ministry of Education officials had costed the teachers’ federation proposals and “had no objections to it. We were shocked that OPSBA rejected it.”
He charged the school boards are trying to “claw back” benefits and improved working conditions from the 2005 contract. He said signing the deal would have stripped away teachers’ rights and “undermined their autonomy. That is why the talks failed.
He noted that the teachers group has a $100-million strike fund.
He also noted that the Liberal government, and Education Minister Kathleen Wynne, a former school board chairman, set up the bargaining process that the boards and federation are being forced to use.
He also noted that it would have made more sense to get agreements from the larger public board before reaching agreements with the French and Catholic boards.
Clegg said that in his meetings with teachers across the province, there has been very good attendance, and teachers have been upset with school officials when union officials explained what had happened.
The reporter attempted to reach Upper Grand School Board’s Director of Education, who was involved in the negotiations. Martha Rogers passed along that request to an OPSBA official.
Laralea Carruthers later stated the Ministry deal that was offered included the same pay numbers the union sought, but the union rejected that deal.
She said that the issue of changing benefits was more of one that OPSBA wanted to clarify procedures for supervising classes. She said those are already done informally, and OPSBA wanted it reflected in the contract.
She explained that means teachers must be in class 15 minutes ahead of the official start to the school day, and five minutes prior to the students’ return from lunch.
“It is provincial law,” she said, adding that OPSBA officials had heard some places were not adhering to it, so OPSBA wanted the wording in the contract.
She added she could not comment about it not being included in the Catholic or French school board’s agreements.
