Process of ratifying deals ‘has become problematic’

The OSSTF has a ratified threeyear provincial deal for its teachers, but last spring called strikes in three boards. This fall it launched job action in a few boards, including Toronto, on local issues.

Now, locally, about 15 boards have deals in place with OSSTF teacher locals, “and more that are coming in on a daily basis, and I hope that trend is going to continue. But the process has become problematic, and the whole thing needs to be reviewed.”

The OSSTF also represents 15,000 support staff in a number of boards who don’t yet have provincial or local deals, who are also working-to-rule and are under management threat to dock pay. To make things even more confusing, other support staff — represented by CUPE — have a provincial deal but no local deals.

“We are into the 18th month now, and it will probably be another six months until all deals are done. Something needs to be done about the efficiency of this,” Elliott said.

At Queen’s Park on Friday, Deputy Premier Deb Matthews conceded the process has had its challenges.

“Everybody’s going to want to sit back and reflect on that and we’ve committed to doing that,” Matthews said. “There’s no question this was a really tough round of negotiations; it continues to be a tough round of negotiations,” said the minister who, as Treasury Board president, is the government’s point person on restraint measures.

“Because not only are we totally changing the process . . . we’re in a ‘net zero’ environment,” she said, referring to the government’s insistence that any gains in the contracts be offset by cuts elsewhere.

The government has come under fire for providing $2.5 million to three unions to help cover bargaining costs, money the premier has said is “net zero” but unions say is not.

Progressive Conservative MPP Monte McNaughton (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex) said the new system has led to problems like the controversial payments, not to mention the tentative settlement with the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario that enables teachers to duck crucial interviews with parents.

“Every parent and every student . . . knows there is total chaos in the education system. The two-tier bargain- ing system is broken,” McNaughton said, urging the Liberals to “go back to the drawing board.”

Ontario is the only jurisdiction with tiered bargaining that allows strikes provincially and locally, which observers say may have been a way for the government to appease the unions into signing on to the new system, given their history of strong local bargaining.

With Ontario centralizing much of education, including the funding, many argue it only makes sense to have the big items such as salary, class size or prep time decided provincially. Bill 122, the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act, was ushered in 2014.

Alessandra Fusco, a spokeswoman for Education Minister Liz Sandals, said this is round one of bargaining and all parties agreed a new structure was needed. The fact that deals have been reached shows “successful negotiations (under legislation) are possible even in times of fiscal restraint. The legislation establishes a clear framework for negotiations by creating a two-tier process with legally defined roles for all parties.

“Upon the conclusion of this full round of negotiations, our government has committed to consulting with all of our education partners to seek further improvements to the framework.”

Margot Trevelyan, a former labour relations and governance director for the Ministry of Education during the time bargaining shifted from local to central, said there had been up to 500 collective agreements throughout Ontario. The problem was that “unions would negotiate agreements at a board that was relatively wealthy and get a good deal their members needed, and then try to pattern that across the province with other boards that might not be able to afford it.”

So one advantage of the new system is “it avoids that ratcheting up.” It also gives boards a collective strength.

The deal also provides $600,000 from the government to the union to cover the costs of professional development.

Asource told the Star that money is akin to the controversial funds provided to the other three teacher unions to cover bargaining costs, but “just a different name.” With files from Robert Benzie