NO ‘POLITICAL PAWNS’
Student trustees are demanding an end to the teachers’ strike in Durham
“I haven’t heard a coherent explanation as to what the local issues are that have prompted a local strike.” LIZ SANDALS EDUCATION MINISTER
Student trustees across Ontario are urging all sides — the government, the high school teachers’ union and school boards’ association — to stop using teens as “political pawns” and end the strike in Durham as well as the threat of further job action across the province.
Trevor Sookraj of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association said students were caught in the middle during the last labour disruption in 2012 and 2013 and “that left us powerless . . . in the middle of playground battles” between the adults.
While “students being used as political pawns” is not new, he said, but “we are not very impressed with either side.”
The association, which represents student trustees who sit on public and Catholic school boards but have no voting rights, is now trying to “bridge the gap” and has set up meetings with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation on Wednesday, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association on Thursday and the education ministry in early May.
This time, new legislation mandates a two-tiered approach to bargaining, where big-cost items such as salary and sick leave are negotiated at provincial bargaining tables, while local specifics such as teacher transfers or unpaid leaves are bargained between individual school boards and the union districts.
Although Durham teachers hit the picket lines Monday after failing to reach a local deal with the Durham District School Board in time, the provincial branch of the union returned to talks with the government and school boards’ association.
Class size and salaries are issues handled at provincial talks, and the union initially walked away after a proposal that included no wage increase, an unpaid day off and slower movement up the salary grid. The province has said there is no extra money for salary increases unless teachers find a way to offset the cost.
Six other school boards have been named as possible strike targets, including Rainbow in the Sudbury, Ont., area, where teachers will walk off the job on April 27 if a local deal isn’t reached.
Some have speculated the Durham strike was called in the hopes of prompting some movement at the provincial tables, where unions have complained progress is slow.
Even Education Minister Liz San- dals said she was “mystified” at the cause of the Durham strike.
“I haven’t heard a coherent explanation as to what the local issues are that have prompted a local strike,” she told reporters. “I think I’m like a lot of parents, quite frankly, and a lot of students and I suspect a lot of teachers.”
On Monday, streams of striking high school teachers in blue union rain ponchos marched outside Durham Region’s high schools.
Grade 12 student Ellen Neal of Pine Ridge Secondary School in Pickering arrived at board headquarters with fellow student Cameron Penn out of concern over the strike. “I would have been in chemistry, physics and calculus today,” said Neal, “so I’m missing out on some pretty intense classes.” She fears a beloved annual student leadership camp this weekend held at Camp Kandalore could be postponed and even cancelled if teachers remain on strike.
“It’s a phenomenal way for students to learn how to break down the walls between us, and I’d be extremely disappointed if120 students miss out on this opportunity.”