Teachers to unveil strike plans

Elementary schools facing reduced services

Parents and students will find out Thursday what to expect when Ontario’s elementary teachers go on strike next week.

Public elementary school teachers from across the province are set to begin a strike Monday that is expected to take the form of a withdrawal of some services rather than a full walkout. Those services will likely include administering standardized test, preparing report cards, filling in for the principals and other tasks.

Peter Giuliani, who heads the Ottawa-Carleton Elementary Teachers’ Federation, was to meet with teachers and Ottawa Carleton District School Board officials Thursday to reveal further details. He said class size is a sticking point for teachers at the bargaining table.

School board officials have already said they expect schools to be open as usual. Before- and afterschool programs in schools will also be open, according to board officials.

The elementary teachers’ strike could be a first step in broader job action tied to the province’s new central bargaining system.

It has already caused turmoil in public high schools across the province. High school teachers have targeted seven regions for strikes, including Ottawa. So far, teachers in Peel, Durham and Sudbury have walked off the job, leaving 67,000 high school students out of class. There has been no word about similar action in Ottawa. The teachers’ union is required to give five days’ notice if it intends to strike.

Catholic elementary school teachers’ contract expires in June. French teachers are continuing to bargain.

Strikes and less disruptive job action can cause high anxiety among parents, who have to make arrangements for their children, and among students themselves, especially high school students about to graduate.

Ottawa Carleton District School Board spokesman Sharlene Hunter said the board is “actively working to develop contingency plans in the event of labour disruption,” for events such as graduations. Students and parents should “work on the assumption that school and school-related events will continue,” she added.

Teachers across the province have been bargaining under a new system — in which big-ticket issues such as salaries and benefits are negotiated centrally and local issues are bargained with each school board. The turmoil, and potential turmoil if the strikes spread to more high schools and the elementary teachers expand their labour action, is keeping many around the province on edge.

Ottawa has seen school labour disruptions before.

In 2012, high school teachers around the province took job action that included withdrawal of some services and meant an end to extracurricular activities after provincial Bill 115 froze their wages, banned strikes for two years and prevented them from banking sick days they could previously cash out when they retired. Elementary teachers also held a one-day strike. The ongoing negotiations are the first since that legislation was passed.

School labour relations were rocky in the late 1990s, when 126,000 Ontario public and Catholic school teachers staged a twoweek illegal strike to protest massive changes to education proposed by the Progressive Conservative government of premier Mike Harris. The strike, which affected two million students, was the largest of its kind in North American history.

The current labour turmoil potentially affects 47,942 public elementary and 24,146 public high school students in Ottawa.