French and Catholic teachers’ unions playing with fire
Any strike very likely to backfire
What’s up with Ontario’s French and Catholic teaching unions?
The two unions that represent teachers in the English public school boards agreed to settle their contracts through arbitration, but Catholic and French teachers have yet to reach a deal.
English public elementary and secondary union leaders and their members understand two key points that have eluded their counterparts. With the amount of teaching time lost during the pandemic, the first priority of everyone in the system ought to be keeping schools open. It’s difficult to imagine that there is much public support for a strike. Second, teachers can expect a substantial raise through arbitration, given the size of other public sector settlements. It’s a raise they can get without working to rule or going on strike.
The French and Catholic unions are in a different universe. The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) has already taken a strike vote and now it wants conciliation. The French union, the Association des enseignantes et enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO) also wants conciliation, which will begin Jan. 10. AEFO has scheduled a strike vote for later this month.
What is the endgame for the French and Catholic unions and why do they want to subject parents and students to continuing uncertainty about whether schools will be open?
The provincial government has been in talks with those two reluctant unions for 18 months and has held 50 meetings with each union without achieving a deal.
Surely the problem is not salary. The unions can’t realistically think they will get more money than an arbitrator ultimately gives other teachers. It’s difficult to imagine that the two reluctant unions have a grievance big enough to justify a strike. The Catholic union seems set on negotiating a deal without arbitration. The French union cites unnamed workload issues as a barrier to settlement.
The Catholic and French teachers would do well to remember that their future employment relies on parents choosing their school boards. No one has to go to a French or Catholic school in Ontario.
A recent report by the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario (FAO) provided some interesting new detail on just what a sweet deal the French and Catholic systems have in Ontario. It’s certainly fodder for those who champion a simpler public education system.
One might have expected that the key characteristic of a Catholic school board would be offering schooling to Catholics. If so, Ontario has dramatically overshot the mark. In 2021, there were 570,116 students who identified as Catholic or had at least one Catholic parent. And yet, Ontario’s Catholic schools, French and English combined, have room for 725,416 students. That means the Ontario Catholic system has 155,300 more spaces that it does potential students.
While the Catholic school system’s nominal reason for existence is to deliver Catholic education, one need not be Catholic to attend a Catholic high school and even in elementary schools non-catholics can attend with permission. Even with those provisions, Catholic school enrolment in 2021-22 was just 554,739.
Then there is the boutique French-language school system. Ontario has about two million students, but only about 110,000 of them are served by French school boards. Because many of those boards are small and cover vast geographic areas, they are costly to operate. In 2021-22, English public school boards spent an average of $14,059 per student and English Catholic boards $14,376. French boards spent significantly more, with public boards spending $19,969 per student and Catholic boards $18,675.
Like the English Catholic boards, the French boards engage in mission creep. They can admit people who have no legal right to French education and even recent immigrants who speak neither French nor English.
In an education system that featured even a hint of rationality, French and Catholic boards would be restricted to educating only those they were created to serve. Better yet, French boards would be abolished and French education made part of the mandate of the larger English public and English Catholic boards.
Ontario’s education system is ludicrously complex. It takes the FAO dozens of pages just to describe how the funding works. There has long been public pressure for a simpler system because it makes sense.
The structural reform of education is a powder keg that has never had the political spark to ignite it. A strike by Catholic or French teachers while the English public schools are open might just provide that spark and the unions are playing with matches.