Imposing teacher contracts could be costly
Unions likely to seek costs in wake of court ruling against Liberals’ Bill 115
Ontario education unions say it’s too early to talk about what they will seek in light of a ruling that found the Liberal government interfered in collective bargaining when it imposed contracts on teachers and staff back in 2012, although court costs are an obvious start.
Education Minister Liz Sandals said she’s waiting for word from her department’s lawyers on what the “remedy” will entail and whether the ruling should be appealed.
“People are reviewing the ruling. I am not a lawyer,” said Sandals, who tried to distance herself and Premier Kathleen Wynne from the controversial bill. However, both voted in favour of it when Dalton McGuinty was premier and Laurel Broten was education minister.
“Those were the circumstances at the time,” said Sandals, noting the new Wynne administration decided to repeal Bill 115 after McGuinty’s departure in 2013.
Regardless, the Liberal government faced stinging criticism from opposition parties.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said the bill was used to help the Liberals wrest the riding of Kitchener-Waterloo from the Progressive Conservatives in a byelection that was ultimately won by New Democrat Catherine Fife.
“They willingly violated the Charter rights of educational workers in this province for political gain,” Horwath told reporters, predicting the remedy will involve money.
“Ontarians will pay once again,” she added. “They already paid with the chaos that was unleashed in the school system.”
Bill 115 not only forced contracts on education unions, but also froze wages and affected workers’ ability to strike. On Wednesday, Ontario Superior Court Judge Thomas Lederer ruled the legislation “substantially interfered” with negotiations.
York University professor and labour law expert David Doorey said “it’s difficult to predict what the remedy would be because there are multiple unions involved whose members were affected differently by the unconstitutional actions of the government.
“A remedy usually aims to restore the victims to the positions they would have been in but for the Charter violation. So it is up to the unions to come forward and explain what harm they or their members suf- fered. Insofar as that is monetary losses, the government could be ordered to pay.”
Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, called the ruling “an absolute vindication for our members” and said the parties will now try to settle on the “remedy sought, or go back to the ( judge)” to do so. “Costs is an obvious one we are looking at, other than that, we are looking at our options.”
He said “whatever the costs — as I said a long time ago — the Liberals should have thought of that at the time.”
Michael Barrett, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, called Bill 115 “a dark period in teacher, board and ministry labour relations” and school boards did not support it.
“It will be interesting to see what the ramifications of the remedy are,” he said, wondering if things like sick days or the controversial hiring Regulation 274 — which imposes seniority when supply teachers apply for positions — would be rolled back.
Wynne acknowledged that Bill 115 was “was very problematic.”
“When I ran in the leadership, starting in 2012, I was clear that we needed to move away from the rancour that had been created because of that legislation,” she said.
“It’s been repealed because it’s not how we wanted to go forward in our relationship with the education sector and we put a different process in place. We worked with the sector to put a new process in place and I know that there are still refinements that we’ll need to make to the bargaining process that is there, but that piece of legislation has been repealed. I was very clear about it in my leadership and have acted on that as the premier.”