Hope wanes as Ontario teacher strikes drag on
As the weeks tick by, parents are frustrated by ‘glacial’ review process
Where is the sense of urgency?
With just four weeks left of class, hope for nearly 70,000 strike-bound Ontario high school students seems nowhere in sight. It could be the first time in Ontario a school year is lost.
A panel asked by the education minister a week ago to decide if strikes have put the school year at risk is still “reviewing information” with no deadline set for a ruling.
A labour relations board decision on whether teachers’ strikes in three school boards are legal is not expected until sometime next week.
And provincial talks between the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) and the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) — talks that Premier Kathleen Wynne said two weeks ago she would “light a fire” under — resumed Wednesday, only to break off again Thursday and Friday and restart again this weekend.
“This is infuriating to people in Durham — everyone seems to be dragging their feet and our kids are going to be at quite a disadvantage next fall,” said Craig Shillabeer of Oshawa, whose daughter Holly is in Grade 9 at O’Neill Collegiate.
To Holly, who has now missed nearly five weeks of instruction, especially in math — “which sucks, because we’ve missed half the units on graphic and linear relations” — hope is fading.
“I kind of doubt we’ll go back this year at all.”
It has been nearly five weeks since the OSSTF walked off the job in Durham over what it called sluggish local talks. Their peers in the Sudbury District walked out April 27 and in Peel Region May 4.
With panic growing among parents and students, Education Minister Liz Sandals called on the arm’slength Education Relations Commission (ERC) last Friday, before the long weekend, to rule if the school year is in jeopardy in the those boards.
If the ERC panel agrees the year is at risk, the government could choose to order teachers back to work, although Wynne insisted Thursday she doesn’t want “to pre-empt the process.
“But I will take whatever action I need to take to get the kids back to school as soon as possible,” Wynne told reporters at the Shangri-La Hotel in Toronto.
Reached by email Thursday afternoon, ERC Chair Christopher Albertyn said the commission “has been consulting interested and affected parties and gathering such information as it considers necessary to make an informed decision.”
Sandals, meanwhile, said in an emailed statement Thursday evening that the ERC “understands the urgency of the matter and will be providing their advice once the necessary process has unfolded.”
At the heart of the dispute is a new two-tiered bargaining process in which big-ticket money items such as wages, class size and prep time are hammered out at provincial “central” tables and smaller non-money issues such as personnel files and supervision are bargained locally.
Strikes are allowed at either level, but it is not clear whether teachers can strike locally over issues at the central table.
Last week, the three strike-bound school boards asked the Ontario Labour Relations Board to make an “urgent” ruling that these local strikes actually target central issues such as class size and prep time — cited in slogans on many picket line placards. After allowing 41⁄ days of
2 exhaustive argument, Chair Bernard Fishbein said Thursday he will delib- erate and report back “sometime in the middle of next week.”
Said Michael Barrett, chair of the Durham District School Board and also president of OPSBA: “I am frustrated; I am frustrated at the glacial pace of actions — of all actions.
“I am extremely concerned and disappointed that our students continue not to be where they need to be; in the classroom. However, we still need to keep discussing at the table as a negotiated settlement by far has the greater good for future educational relationships and commitment.”
Paul Elliott, president of the teachers union, said Thursday night he had “guarded optimism” toward discussions with the school board association, “even with the mediators assistance.”
He also noted in an email to the Star that the break in talks on Thursday and Friday was due to “bargaining scheduled for our support staff.”
Simcoe North MPP Garfield Dunlop, the Progressive Conservative education critic, said he had been expecting an OLRB ruling by Thursday. Dunlop believes the school year “is definitely in jeopardy.”
“We are talking about 25 days (off school in Durham), and if they don’t make a decision until next week, that’s up to 30 days for Durham students alone.” With files from Robert Benzie