Teachers and the minority Liberal government are headed for a showdown in the New Year, with Education Minister Laurel Broten refusing to back down on Bill 115 despite ongoing teacher protests and pleas to find a solution before kids return to school after the holidays.“We’re going to give an opportunity for (local) negotiations to take place,” Broten said in an interview on “Super Tuesday,” the largest one-day strike so far by public elementary teachers at eight school boards around the province.
“After Dec. 31, the ability to negotiate collective agreements expires. At that point, we’d look to the tools in the legislation.”
After almost two weeks of rotating strikes that will hit every public elementary school in the province — including 35,000 walking the picket lines in Toronto, Peel, Durham and around Ontario on Tuesday — student leaders and school boards are urging the government to act.
“The province took over provincial bargaining so, in my view, they’re the ones who need to ensure this disruption to public education comes to a swift conclusion,” said chair Janet McDougald of the Peel District School Board.
“Every day, we work hard to build confidence in public education, to build trust with our parents and students. This conflict and confusion seriously undermines this work. I hope that this is important enough to the province and teachers’ unions that they meet over the holiday break” to end the impasse, she said.
Elementary teachers’ union president Sam Hammond said that if the government does impose a contract on teachers, as it can under Bill 115 as of Dec. 31, teachers will stage a one-day “political protest” in the new year, and possibly on a school day.
While teachers would not be in a legal strike position, a “political protest” is still allowed, he told reporters outside the headquarters of the Toronto District School Board, where about 150 teachers picketed Tuesday to protest the controversial legislation.
In Toronto, picket lines were also set up outside the education ministry offices at Bay and Wellesley Sts., as well as individual schools.
About two dozen teachers gathered outside Kew Beach Jr. Elementary Tuesday morning, blowing whistles and cheering at honking cars.
“We need to sort things out between the government and the teachers, and I’m sad because we’re both losing,” said phys. ed teacher Jane Shepherd.
Just around the corner from the picket line, parents dropped off their youngest children at the school’s daycare.
Sara Hilliard, vice-president of product management at a financial services company, said she had to bring her two school-aged children to work with her.
“I have no choice; I’m trapped,” she said. “This is the worst scenario. I have meetings to go to, so they’ll have to just camp out in my office all day.”
At Davisville Public School, parents of at least two children arrived not realizing there was a strike. Anna Beatrice Velasquez brought her grandson, who is in kindergarten and also in the child-care centre part-time. The child-care centre was open for business and welcomed him for the day.
Another mother, Thuy Le, heard about the walkout last week but forgot and, through force of habit woke at 7 a.m. and came with husband Chi Nguyen to drop their Grade 2 daughter at school — until spotting the picketing teachers on the sidewalk.
“I forgot,” Thuy Le groaned, smacking her forehead, but said she didn’t have to go to work right away so it wasn’t a problem.
Broten has been urging the teacher unions to leave students out of their fight, and instead leave their objection to Bill 115 to the courts, also saying the unions should use their energy to hammer out contracts with local school boards.
But both Hammond and Ken Coran, president of the secondary teachers’ union, say Bill 115 imposes too many constraints and that it will be extremely difficult for deals to be reached, especially by the end-of-the-year deadline.
Premier Dalton McGuinty told CP24 that the government and teachers have “got to find a way to do better,” the Star’s Richard J. Brennan reports. McGuinty noted the province has settled with Catholic and French teachers, as well as the province’s doctors.
But Martin Long, president of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto, said those deals came without any legislation like the public teachers face.
The province’s elementary and secondary public school teachers have both withdrawn extracurricular activities in light of the dispute with the province, and Hammond would not say when they’d return.
Should the minister decide to not impose contracts, Hammond would not promise a return to normal, saying only: “We will cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Rob Ferguson and Kristin Rushowy
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