Teachers to be sent back to classroom

The Ontario government tabled back-to-work legislation Monday to send high school teachers in three boards back to class, but the move to save the end of this school year may damage the start of next.

Education Minister Liz Sandals said the Liberals made the “difficult but necessary” decision after receiving a warning from the province’s Education Relations Commission that the school year is in “jeopardy.”

High school teachers in Durham Region entered their sixth week out of class on Monday; teachers in Peel and Sudbury have been out for weeks as well.

Sandals said the back-to-work bill — which likely pass later this week — will help ensure teens finish with a full year.

That doesn’t mean, however, it will settle the lengthy list of grievances, both past and present, that see the government and unions at the opposite end of the bargaining table.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) has thus far concentrated its efforts in a handful of boards, but its president, Paul Elliott, warned Monday the back-to-work bill could spread the discontent.

“It actually has inflamed the situation,” he said, adding the union is now “looking at where we can go in the fall.”

He also said he doesn’t think they will consider any more local strikes this school year given the pending bill, but they are now taking the procedural steps necessary to set up a provincewide strike, which could take the weeks remaining in the school year. But it’s not just the OSSTF. The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario is already engaged in a work-to-rule campaign by withholding standardized testing, report-card comments and other behind-the-scenes tasks. That union could stage a full-blown walkout with just five days’ notice.

The Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, which represents most separate school teachers in Ontario, will be in a legal strike position come mid-June.

Neither of those unions was commenting on the OSSTF bill on Monday, but the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Ontario branch warned other education unions are taking note. Its president, Fred Hahn, represents 54,000 education workers in Ontario, such as education assistants in special needs classrooms.

The bill, just like Bill 115 that imposed contracts on teachers in 2012 under then-premier Dalton McGuinty, “uses a legislative hammer to infringe on people’s rights,” Hahn said. “All of us who have members working in schools have a real interest to work together.”

There’s still anger lingering from that bill and this could spur more concerted action between the unions this fall.

“This kind of thing, I think will inspire unions (beyond) the education sector,” Hahn said.

That unrest could explain why NDP leader Andrea Horwath won’t support the Liberals’ bid to speed through the bill in question: she’s seen as shoring up her left-leaning support after drifting too far right in the 2014 election.

She called the Liberals’ bid for unanimous consent to pass the bill Monday “undemocratic.”