Teachers refusing to collect milk money, labour board told

Got milk?

Not in school snack programs any more in most of cottage country, where teachers are refusing to collect milk money as part of their protest against Bill 115.

The cancellation of all but six school milk programs in the Trillium Lakelands District School Board is just one of the lost services that has prompted it and the Upper Canada District School Board to seek a cease-and-desist order against the teachers’ extracurricular boycott from the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

Ontario Is Cheating Our Children

The details of Bill 115, Ontario's ironically named Putting Students First Act, have not been adequately explained to the public. The missing facts about this legislation follow.

Pay Freeze
When teachers' contracts come up for collective bargaining -- usually every four years -- the salary grid is updated to allow for cost-of-living increases of approximately 3% per year. These are the "raises" of which Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten, and a variety of uninformed columnists have been speaking. Actually these so-called "raises" do no more than maintain the value of teachers' current compensation. To help with a deficit they didn't create, teachers were willing to accept a pay freeze (forgoing the 3% increase to compensate for cost-of-living and inflation) months ago, but as Rick Salutin brilliantly put it this month, "the government refused to take 'yes' for an answer." We don't necessarily oppose a pay freeze; we oppose a bill of which one part is a pay freeze.

Ontario teacher protest: Liberals repeal Bill 115

The Ontario government officially repealed Bill 115 early Wednesday morning, a move the teacher unions have called “meaningless.”

It is not expected to have any effect on the ongoing tensions with public elementary and high school teachers and extracurricular activities will not resume.

Beating back the anti-labour agenda in Ontario

Since the summer, the Ontario Liberals have been engaged in a campaign to limit bargaining rights and implement concessions across the public sector. They started with teachers and school support staff in the province by introducing Bill 115. The Liberals were planning on expanding this attack to some 400,000 public sector employees before the legislature was prorogued. Ostensibly, this campaign was undertaken to balance the $15-billion budget deficit, but in reality this has been nothing but a crass ploy to curb the power of organized labour.

Bill 115: Liberals repealing controversial anti-strike law for teachers

Ontario’s governing Liberals are repealing a controversial law that imposed contracts on public school teachers and limited their ability to strike.

They say the change will take effect Jan. 23.

Bill 115 sparked a major protest by unions that resulted in rotating strikes by elementary teachers and withdrawal of extracurricular activities by high school teachers.

When the law’s an ass: Politicians and civil disobedience

In a recent issue of the Toronto Sun, Liberal activist Warren Kinsella took on certain Ontario Liberal leadership candidates for courting certain union leaders at the expense of demonstrating support for a law that curbs the right of teachers to strike.

Kinsella’s argument basically boils down to dura lex sed lex — “the law may be harsh, but it’s still the law.” Politicians are expected to demonstrate support for the rule of law. Failure to do so, says Kinsella, surrenders society to the “caprice of despots and ideologues.”

Ontario teachers' labour dispute may be beginning of broader battle across public service

The ongoing labour crisis in Ontario's public schools may just be a prelude to a much broader battle about to unfold between the government and all public sector workers in the province.

As it stands, teachers are at an impasse in their face-off with the Liberal government of soon-to-be-retired Premier Dalton McGuinty. After Education Minister Laurel Broten used the controversial Bill 115 on January 3 to impose a contract on the province's 126,000 teachers and education workers who had yet to reach agreements with their school boards, teachers' unions were outraged and warned this would not be the end of the bitter dispute.

Elementary school teachers will halt further strike actions if Ontario scraps Bill 115

Elementary school teachers offered Friday to stop all rotating strikes and take no new strike action if the Education Minister promises that she won’t force collective agreements on ETFO under Bill 115 on or after December 31.

“This would allow room for more productive, respectful, democratic and fair discussions to take place with the goal of reaching collective agreements under a new leader in this province,” said Sam Hammond, president, ETFO.

Teacher protest: Broten not budging on Bill 115, heading for showdown with teachers

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.

Bramalea Secondary School students stage Queen's Park protest against Bill 115

By the time I arrived at Queen’s Park, the metal barricades were set up around the front of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario building.

In less than half an hour, students from Bramalea Secondary School would stage a protest against Bill 115, the Putting Students First Act, that freezes teachers’ wages for two years and prevents them from striking.

In response, teachers cancelled all extracurricular activities at Bramalea Secondary and some other schools around the province.