Teachers with the Upper Grand District School Board are continuing their fight against the Liberal government’s Bill 115, the Putting Students First Act.
The bill, passed last month in the Ontario Legislature, bans teachers from striking for two years and gives the provincial government the power to regulate teachers’ contracts. Teachers’ unions, including the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), have launched a Charter of Rights legal challenge in a bid to have the bill struck down.
Doug Cook, president of the Upper Grand ETFO, which represents about 1,200 local teachers, said the unions contend the bill contravenes parts of the Labour Relations Act.
“We have a legal right under the Labour Relations Act to negotiate with our employer (the school board) and not the government,” Cook said. “Under the Labour Relations Act you’re obliged to bargain in good faith.”
When reached by the Advertiser for comment, Education Minister Laurel Broten’s office replied in a statement, “We will vigorously defend the constitutional challenge. Our position in court will be that the Putting Students First Act is constitutional, that we have respected the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the right to a process of collective bargaining, and that, in any event, under the Charter this measure is both reasonable and justified in all the circumstances.”
Union officials contend they have the right to bargain with their own school boards and not the provincial government – a right they maintain has been contravened by the passage of Bill 115.
Yet despite passage of the bill, negotiations of non-compensation issues has continued between the board and its unions.
Upper Grand ETFO members recently voted 97 per cent in favor of strike action. A similar vote of 96% was held by supply teachers, but the votes are largely symbolic because Bill 115 doesn’t allow for strike action.
Cook was also critical of the government and Broten’s public comments in support of the bill, which the government has said was necessary to hold teachers’ salaries in check as part of measures to cut Ontario’s $15 billion deficit and to avoid any potential strike action by teachers.
Cook said there was never a threat of strike action, as negotiations with the local school board continued. He said tensions between teachers’ unions and the government have “continued to escalate,” and have “significantly interfered with the right to bargain locally.”
“The minister uses inflammatory terms and [has] escalated tensions,” said Cook.
He added he does not expect Premier Dalton McGuinty’s announced resignation and decision to prorogue the legislature to interfere with the legal challenge.
He was “encouraged” to hear the education minister planned to meet with teachers’ unions this week (they met on Oct. 23).
“I’m personally encouraged the minister of education has contacted our (provincial president) for a meeting,” said Cook.
The latest round of squabbling came last week, when the education minister was critical of the provincial union’s suggestion that teachers limit their comments on student progress reports going to parents later this month.
“The [ETFO] has directed their members to do the bare minimum on progress report cards this fall,” Broten said in a News release to the Advertiser. “Jeopardizing fall student progress report cards as a means to fight the government’s fiscal plan is of grave concern to me. I have spoken directly to ETFO president Sam Hammond and asked him to rescind his directive to teachers. I look forward to meeting with him this week. I continue to call on teachers not to put students in the middle of their dispute with the government.”
Cook noted, “ETFO issued advice to teachers and teachers will choose to follow that advice or not.”
The progress reports, Cook explained, are not report cards, which go out in January.
“It’s a significantly less involved report to parents,” he said. “It’s to give parents an initial heads-up.”
The reports are also followed up by parent-teacher interviews later in the month.
Cook said his members are also reviewing any decisions to halt extra curricular activities. Some schools have seen activities put on hold, he added.
“It’s happening locally and it’s heartbreaking to see,” he said. “It varies from school to school.”
