The province has given school boards and teachers until the end of August to sign local agreements based on one reached with English Catholic teachers last month, but so far only one — the Toronto District Catholic School Board — has been successful.
The agreement freezes the wages of more experienced teachers, ends the accumulation of sick days and requires all teachers to take three unpaid days off.
If agreements aren’t reached in time, the draft bill would impose similar terms on all teachers until a new two-year contract is signed and approved by the government. The province would also have the authority to impose a new collective agreement.
Broten said the government can’t let the threat of labour disruption in schools go unanswered.
“The threat of disruptions for our students is really real and this legislation, if passed, would allow us to protect the gains we’ve made and make sure that our dollars go to full-day kindergarten and small class sizes, not more teacher pay and banked sick days,” she said.
As the minister has said before, if new contracts are not in place by Aug. 31, existing contracts will rollover, resulting in salary increases for teachers and more bankable sick days that could be cashed out upon retirement.
The salary rollover would cost Ottawa’s public school board approximately $3.2 million and the Catholic board about $1.5 million, Broten said.
While the province’s Catholic and francophone teachers unions have already signed a memorandum of understanding with the government that sets out the parameters to be negotiated at the local level, neither the elementary or secondary teachers unions — which together represent the majority of Ontario teachers — have.
Broten says both walked away from the talks with the province shortly after they began.
“I don’t believe the average Ontario worker would expect to get a 5.5-per cent pay hike in these economic times just because they took the summer off and refused to negotiate a new agreement.
“What I’m saying today is that won’t happen; we won’t let it happen,” she said.
Union leaders and school board trustees alike reacted in anger, accusing the minister of creating the crisis.
“Her comments were very inflammatory and I don’t think they will do much to please the leadership or members of our organization,” said Ken Coran, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.
Members of the union were gathered in Toronto for meetings Thursday, and many wore buttons that said “Negotiate Don’t Legislate.”
“We have not been sitting on our hands,” Coran said.
But, he added, it’s unrealistic to expect that all union locals will have agreements in place by the end of the month.
John Shea, an Ottawa public school trustee, said Broten is “inventing a crisis that doesn’t exist for the sake of making her government look tough in face of provincewide austerity measures.”
“Over the span of several months, Minister Broten has bungled teacher negotiations in a spectacular way and has seriously damaged this government’s relationship with the education sector,” he said.
The minority Liberals won’t say when they plan to introduce the proposed legislation, which would require them to recall the legislature early.
They also need at least one of the opposition parties to support the bill for it to pass.
Lisa MacLeod, the Progressive Conservative MPP for Nepean-Carleton and her party’s education critic, said the Tories wouldn’t make a decision until after taking a “hard look at the legislation.”
“She’s effectively alienated all of the key stakeholders and is trying her darndest to alienate the opposition and, at the end of the day, I think every single person wants to make sure kids and their teachers are in the classroom come September. I think there was a better way,” she said of Broten’s handling of labour relations.
The PCs say a provincewide wage freeze for all public servants is the best and most equitable way for the cash-strapped province to achieve real savings.
“We think it would have been far more constructive to treat every single public servant fairly than pick on teachers or doctors,” she said.
Broten defended her record, saying she is proud of the peace and stability in schools. But, she noted, there’s a need to put the system on sustainable financial footing.
“No one said these conversations would be easy,” she said.
That’s worth remembering, said Gerard Kennedy, the first person to assume the education portfolio after McGuinty became premier in 2003.
In an interview, the former Liberal MP said the relationship between the government and the province’s teachers has changed dramatically and that recent years of labour peace should not be taken for granted or else students will ultimately be the ones who suffer.
“This discussion can be had with respecting the rights of all the people around the table without impacting kids,” he said.
“Now that the contracts are coming due and the school year is opening up, it’s incumbent on everybody to take the extra steps to make sure that that’s case because I don’t think the public, having now become used to it, will put up with anything less.”
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Matthew Pearson
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