Teachers unions appeal back-to-school plan

Filings to labour board call province’s system ‘morally unconscionable’

The Ontario government’s back-to-school plan is “morally unconscionable” and even dangerous, the province’s teachers unions are arguing in an appeal now before the labour relations board. The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation noted in its filing that at the time it was writing its appeal, Premier Doug Ford had “just limited social gathering sizes to 10 indoors and 25 outside across the province because COVID-19 cases continue to rise. And yet the (ministry of education) has maintained normal indoor class sizes of between 20 and 35 or more across most of Ontario.”

The OSSTF also said that student cohorts remain at 100 under the return-to-school guide “even as social bubbles are maintained at 10. In respect of our children and their teachers and other education workers, the Crown offers protection to them which is manifestly less than for the rest of us.

“This is morally unconscionable and legally wrong.”

The labour board appeal was launched by the high school teachers union, as well as the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO), the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, which collectively represent more than 190,000 teachers and support staff.

The case was filed before school began and continues this week, dealing with a preliminary claim by the Crown that the Ontario Labour Relations Board does not have any authority to hear an appeal because no health and safety orders were issued.

The unions argue the government has not taken “every reasonable precaution to protect workers” and failed to “adequately respond” to their concerns, and is violating the workplace health and safety act.

“By reopening schools without having put in place appropriate measures that offer significant protections in this regard, the (government) endangered the health and safety of all workers in significant and imminent danger in the education sector,” the AEFO said in its arguments.

The unions are proposing class sizes of 15 to 20 children in order to maintain two-metre distancing, which currently is not happening in many schools, as well as “minimum ventilation standards to address the risk of airborne transmission,” masking for all students as well as better busing safety.

The OSSTF said that by raising concerns about school reopening, the “definition of an ‘order’ has been met” and the four unions can therefore bring these appeals to the board.