TORONTO -- Ontario's public high school teachers at select boards across the province have announced they will hold another one-day strike next week.
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) announced on Friday that the Jan. 15 strike will affect 16 school boards across the province.
The union said that on the same day, members in other school boards will hold information pickets in front of schools, at MPPs offices and in other location in the province.
The school boards affected by the strike include:
- Keewatin-Patricia District School Board
- District School Board Ontario North East
- Moose Factory Island District Area School Board
- James Bay Lowlands Secondary School Board
- Rainbow District School Board
- Bluewater District School Board
- Upper Grand District School Board
- Wellington Catholic District School Board
- Durham District School Board
- Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board
- Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board
- Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
- Upper Canada District School Board
- Conseil scolaire de district catholique des Grandes Rivières
- Conseil scolaire de district catholique de l’Est ontarien
- Provincial Schools Authority
- Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir
While the two sides have been bargaining for months, negotiators have been deadlocked on several issues.
The union wants the government to reverse its plans to increase high school class sizes to a provincial ratio of 25:1 and to cancel its mandatory e-learning program, set to begin in September 2020.
"The Minister of Education (Stephen Lecce) continues to peddle the false narrative that this dispute is about compensation," OSSTF president Harvey Bischof said in a news release on Friday.
"It's time for the minister to stop playing politics with our students’ education. It’s time for him to recognize that agreements are reached through focused discussion at the bargaining table, not through hyperbolic claims at press conferences."
The government, meanwhile, wants the union to accept a one per cent per year salary increase, instead of the two per cent the union has requested.
