Ontario Liberals impose contracts on teachers

TORONTO, Ont. – Ontario’s governing Liberals have imposed new contracts on nearly 130,000 elementary and high school teachers in public schools across the province.

Education Minister Laurel Broten announced Thursday that she used Bill 115 to impose the new collective agreements, to freeze wages and stop strikes as the government battles a $14.4-billion deficit.

Broten said imposing the contracts had to be done.

“In the interests of students, families and all Ontarians, I’ve been left with no other reasonable option,” Broten said.

The education minister also plans to repeal Bill 115 (Putting Students First Act) before the end of January, saying “it has achieved what it was put in place to do.”

“It is important as a sign of good faith and our commitment to future negotiations that the act be repealed,” Broten said.

She’s hoping that by eliminating it, the teachers will agree to return to extracurricular activities. However, the unions have warned they would boycott after-school programs for two years if the contracts were imposed.

“Never in our history have we had the government of Ontario force a contract, or force the terms and conditions of our agreements upon us … unprecedented autocratic approach,” Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), said in response to the government’s latest move.

“The subsequent repeal of the bill is a disgraceful misuse of government power,” he added.

Hammond also said the province used a “hammer” to impose contracts on its members. He also said that “a decade of goodwill” between the government of Ontario and the public school teachers has been erased.

“Minister Broten will not erase the stain of Bill 115 simply by removing it after is used.”

In terms of the ETFO’s next steps, Hammond did not indicate at the point if there will be further job action by teachers; however, he’s not ruling out a full-day of protest and a mass walkout across the province.

He said he’ll be sitting down with senior union leaders in the coming days to figure out a position going forward.

Teachers’ unions had warned that the Liberals would be asking for trouble if they forced new agreements on their members, who have said they will launch political protests to fight it.

Broten warned that any strike action will be illegal until agreements expire Aug. 31, 2014.

Elementary teachers have already staged one-day strikes across the province in protest of the law.

The province managed to reach a deal before the Dec. 31 deadline with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents about 55,000 workers, including educational assistants, early childhood educators, instructors, custodians, librarians and secretaries.

But the ETFO and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, who represent tens of thousands of teachers, have yet to sign any new agreements.

It’s unlikely that high school teachers will resume those voluntary activities next week, said Ken Coran, president of OSSTF. But that may change if the Liberals fulfill their promise to repeal Bill 115 and select a new leader who will work collaboratively with the unions.

“I would think those two components will certainly be part of the extracurricular discussions,” he said in an interview.

The Liberals have argued that they can’t afford pay hikes for teachers because they need the money to keep classes small and roll out all-day kindergarten, while also battling a $14.4-billion deficit.

They point to deals they reached with Catholic and francophone teachers over the summer as proof that they’ve negotiated agreements that work for both sides.

The province also brokered a deal just before the Dec. 31 deadline with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents about 55,000 workers, including educational assistants, early childhood educators, instructors, custodians, librarians and secretaries.

But the labour fight has taken a political toll on the minority Liberals and self-described “education premier” Dalton McGuinty, who plans to leave the top job once a new leader is chosen at the end of January — when the contentious bill is also expected to be gone.

Rattled by the unions’ declaration of war after the bill was passed, the Liberals tried to mend fences with the very groups whose financial and organizational support helped get them re-elected over the past nine years. McGuinty even prorogued the legislature Oct. 15 to buy more time for his party to repair the relationship.

Broten denied Thursday that repealing the law is a cynical ploy to win back the support of teachers before the next election. But the opposition parties say they’re not so sure.

The minister is admitting the law is flawed while in the same breath saying she’ll still use it to force contracts on teachers, said New Democrat Cheri DiNovo.

“This has nothing to do with the well-being of students and has everything to do with the well-being of the Liberal party,” she added.

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, whose party helped pass the law, said the Liberals have no one but themselves to blame for the chaos in schools.

They say they want to rein in spending, yet they’re throwing away the first bill that actually had a wage freeze in it, he said.

“That tells me that they want to put the union bosses back in charge of running the province,” Hudak said.

There are no good guys or bad guys in this fight, said Annie Kidder, executive director of People for Education. But the Liberals aren’t solving the problems they now face by giving to teachers with one hand, while taking away with the other.

“It’s still a worry in terms of what’s going to happen come Monday in schools,” she said.