Martin Regg Cohn
Since when did students’ report cards become discretionary, subject to the whims of union leaders?
Work-to-rule has a nice ring to it. Sounds like you’re following the rules without breaking them.
As public elementary teachers ratchet up their pressure tactics this week, students may be tempted to raise their hands and ask: Who decides what the rules are, how to bend them, when to break them?
Parents can try this three-part test at home:
Are report cards discretionary, subject to the tempo of labour relations and the tempers of union leaders?
Can a parent request a meeting with their child’s teacher to discuss problems in class, or should the teacher alone determine when to talk?
If your boss sends you an email while you’re in the workplace, can you ignore it with impunity after 3:15?
All of the above are optional extras, according to the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) — and part of the collective bargaining process.
None of the above is fair, in the minds of most parents, who may be wondering about the collective teaching process. Discuss. First, a word about work-to-rule. It means precisely that: Work to rule — no more and no less.
Withdrawing from extracurricular activities is a classic example. Cancelling all voluntary coaching is their legal right, even if it is wrong on so many levels. ETFO has instructed all teachers to boycott extracurriculars as of Wednesday.
Report cards, however, are very much a curricular activity. There is nothing extra, voluntary, optional or discretionary about them. Transmitting marks and comments electronically is emphatically part of a teacher’s job description (no matter how much ETFO claims it’s OK to deluge principals with paper printouts instead of inputting the information into the required databases).
Last June, teachers tried a similar trick that left beleaguered principals scrambling to provide bare bones report cards into the summer months — without any teacher comments. Now, November deadlines loom for autumn progress reports that focus on critical learning issues. ETFO’s latest boycott means students will have gone without individualized comments since the last complete report cards were issued in early 2015 — a scandalous lapse.
Bad enough that teachers aren’t telling parents what’s going on in the classroom, they will also ignore parents who take the initiative to ask for a meeting. An ETFO bulletin notes that “if a parent requests an interview,” union protocol must prevail: “Interviews may only be held if initiated by the teacher.”
If a parent has their own instinctive worries about their child’s progress, too bad — it’s the teacher’s call whether to take that call. That’s not work to rule — it’s indifference and intransigence in defiance of the rules.
Sorry, it’s now 3:15 p.m. as I write this, time to end the column here — done for the day, no need to answer any emails from my editors. That’s how it works for teachers under the work-to-rule protocol from ETFO, which instructs members not to answer emails from principals beyond the “instructional day” (apart from emergencies or substitutions) that ends by 3:15 or 3:30. Teachers used to argue they work long hours beyond classroom hours, but the union now asserts, bizarrely, that they are off duty when the last bell rings. Me too, boss.
How did we get to this point? After 14 months of negotiations, Ontario’s three other teachers’ unions have reached agreement with school boards and the government. The lone holdout is ETFO, just as it was in 2008 when refusing a handsome 12 per cent pay hike over four years (accepted by the other unions). ETFO ended up with a less generous deal of 10 per cent that provoked a union bloodbath in the aftermath (the previous hard-line leader was toppled).
And no lessons learned. Then, as now, ETFO refused to participate in pattern bargaining (perfected in the auto sector) where the various players embrace a similar template instead of trying to one-up each other. Today, ETFO wants a better benefits package than Catholic, French and public high school teachers got, and a different sick leave deal. The government is refusing special treatment and Premier Kathleen Wynne has set a Sunday deadline for a final deal with ETFO, signalling that school boards will soon be authorized to dock teachers’ pay for escalating job actions.
Those are the rules — because sabotaging report cards, snubbing parents and stonewalling principals isn’t working to rule. It all adds up to job action, a form of strike action with clear costs borne by everyone: Teachers, parents, and mostly students. Martin Regg Cohn’s Ontario politics column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. mcohn@thestar.ca, Twitter: @reggcohn