1-day teacher strikes hit Halton, Bluewater, Algoma

TORONTO, Ont. – More than 4,800 elementary school teachers with the Bluewater, Algoma, and Halton school boards will be staging a one-day walkout, Wednesday.

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario said the one-day strikes are to protest controversial legislation that gives the provincial government the power to end strikes and impose a collective agreement on the teachers.

Federation president Sam Hammond has said Education Minister Laurel Broten can end the rotating strikes by repealing Bill 115 and letting local bargaining proceed without interference.

Broten said she’s “disappointed” by the continuing job action, but says the federation is in a legal strike position and that the government decided to let the strikes happen as long as they were only for one day at each board.

Tens of thousands of elementary students in eight Ontario school boards — including the province’s largest — had no classes Tuesday as their teachers staged one-day strikes.

The ETFO said 35,000 teachers, nearly half of the teachers it represents, hit the picket lines Tuesday in the ongoing labour dispute with the province.

Thursday’s walkouts involve school boards in southwestern, eastern and northwestern Ontario.

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