Job action in Ontario schools ramps up
Hamilton public high schools will be closed on Wednesday as rotating strikes continue
Most elementary school field trips, sports and other extracurricular activities will come to a halt next week.
All Hamilton public high schools will be closed this coming Wednesday as rotating strikes continue.
Teachers at both elementary and secondary Catholic schools will not fill out report cards or help prepare provincial standardized testing. They will also join their public high school counterparts in rotating strikes if nothing has changed after next week.
And that’s just the contract dispute news from Thursday and Friday.
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) announced Friday that its 83,000 members in public elementary schools will ramp up a work-to-rule campaign to pressure the Ford government in their ongoing contract dispute. Members will stop supervising after-school extracurricular activities and will no longer go on field trips. Members won’t arrive at schools more than 30 minutes before the start of the school day and will leave no later than 15 minutes after the final afternoon bell.
The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) — representing teachers for students from kindergarten through Grade 12 at Catholic schools — announced on Thursday that its members were starting a job action that includes not participating in any activities related to provincial Grade 9 EQAO math tests that were set to begin Jan. 13. OECTA is also threatening to begin rolling one-day walkouts the following week “if the government refuses to address critical issues in talks” by Jan. 17.
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), which represents public high schools, is already on its fifth week of one-day walkouts on Wednesdays. The union announced Friday that Hamilton is among the school districts to be targeted with a walkout next Wednesday, Jan. 15.
The Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board said that, despite the walkout, licensed child-care will be open in all elementary and secondary school locations on Jan. 15.
OSSTF action also impacts some programs at the local Catholic board’s St. Charles Adult and Continuing Education Centres. The union represents approximately 60 staff working with St. Charles programming.
The ETFO has threatened to begin rotating strikes starting Jan. 20 unless a contract is reached, potentially forcing hundreds of thousands of parents to make child-care arrangements for their kids.
“We tried as hard as we could to keep this away from affecting students,” said Jeff Sorensen, president of ETFO’s Hamilton-Wentworth Elementary Teachers’ Local.
“Unfortunately, the (government), instead of coming to the bargaining table and being responsive and being collaborative, they are refusing to move. They’ve given us no choice in our efforts to protect public education in Ontario.” ETFO president Sam Hammond, a gym teacher at the Hamilton board prior to his full-time union role, blamed the Ford government’s push for $150 million in cuts for the escalating strike action.
Hammond said 22 days of bargaining since August have made little headway because “government representatives have confirmed that they have no mandate to negotiate issues beyond cuts.”
“This government’s approach to education sector contract talks is a sham,” he said in a statement announcing the latest job action.
In separate media statements, Education Minister Stephen Lecce blamed the three unions for the contract impasses.
“Families face union escalation far too often. It’s time for union leaders to end the games and the cyclical experience of escalation that hurts Ontario students,” Lecce said in response to ETFO’s extracurricular activities strike.