School board union sends warning signal to province

Leaders from the union representing 55,000 workers at Ontario’s school boards have voted in favour of job action.

It’s just a step in the bargaining process and doesn’t mean there will be a labour disruption after students head back to school.

But it’s still a warning sign as the province’s education unions bargain for new contracts to replace ones expiring at the end of August.

Unions have fiercely opposed the provincial government’s changes to education, including cuts to some programs, larger classes in grades 4 to 12 and mandatory online courses in high schools. Negotiations are expected to be difficult.

Leaders of the education council of the Canadian Union of Public Employees voted Sunday to support job action. The motion didn’t specify what that could include, but “nothing has been ruled out,” said spokesperson Mary Unan. Typical job actions include rotating strikes, full strikes or work-to-rules.

Similar votes at individual CUPE locals must still take place. They will be held before Sept. 17, the union said in a statement.

On its twitter feed, the CUPE local at the Upper Canada District School Board said a strike vote will be held in early September, and training for strike picket captains is planned for Sept. 14. “The best way to avoid a strike is to be prepared,” the local tweeted.

CUPE represents education assistants, custodians, early childhood educators, school secretaries and clerical staff, library workers, IT technicians, maintenance and tradespeople, food service workers, child and youth workers, speech language pathologists, professionals, paraprofessionals, and others at English and French-language public as well as Catholic school boards.

Strike votes are a common part of the bargaining process.

The union has already asked for a conciliator to be appointed after bargaining broke down. Talks are scheduled for Aug. 14 and 15.

The conciliator must issue a “noboard” report — typically done when bargaining is not successful — followed by a 17-day waiting period before the union is in a legal position to strike and management

is in a position to lock out workers. Either side must also give five days’ notice before staging either a job action or a lockout. CUPE members are upset about job losses and cuts to services in school boards across the province, “which have set the stage for a grim return to class for students in September and have left hundreds of workers laid off from the jobs they love,” said the union in a release.

Bargaining with the union representing high school teachers has stalled while both sides wait for a decision from the Ontario Labour Board about which issues should be negotiated centrally and which issues are local. A decision is not expected until September, according to Harvey Bischof, the president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce has said he wants bargaining with all the education unions to be concluded as quickly as possible. jmiller@postmedia.com twitter.com/JacquieAMiller