Toronto's Catholic elementary teachers plan to strike at one or more schools on Monday
Toronto’s Catholic elementary teachers have given formal notice that they plan to conduct a strike at one or more schools next week amid frustrations over the pace of negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement.
The Toronto Catholic District School Board informed parents about the impending job action in a memo that was issued on Wednesday morning.
They said that the Toronto Elementary Catholic Teacher’s union has provided the board with notice that they will conduct a “full strike” at one or more schools on Monday, though it remains unclear which schools will be targeted.
The board says that the job action is being launched, in part, over two key issues. One relates to a plan to improve staff attendance and the other has to do with the way classroom assignments are handled, the board says.
However, the union says that its roughly 5,000 members have been without a contract since September, 2019 and are now one of the few education sector unions without a new collective bargaining agreement.
They are accusing the board of using “the cover of the pandemic to make unreasonable, regressive demands at the bargaining table.”
“We do not want to further escalate our job action,” Julie Altomare-DiNunzio, who is the president of the local, said in a statement provided to CP24. “As teachers, this is an incredibly difficult action for us to take, as more than anything, we want to be in the classroom, supporting our students’ academic success and well-being. But we cannot ignore the board’s bullying tactics, repeated efforts to drag out negotiations, punitive actions against teachers engaged in lawful job action, and refusal to work together to reach a fair collective agreement.
Talks between the union and the board began in February, 2021 but broke down a few months later, prompting the start of a work-to-rule campaign which has continues.
In its memo, the TCDSB said that it was “shocked” to be informed of the planned job action by the union.
It said that it is “inexcusable” that the union “wants to halt student learning by threatening to strike after all that students have been through during the pandemic.”
The board suggested that the dispute is solely about the union’s intention to prevent it “from providing absenteeism support and managing staffing processes.”
But the union said in its statement that the issues go much deeper than that.
“Our students are already suffering from pandemic-related learning loss. They cannot afford the further damage to the learning environment that the board’s punitive, costly, and ineffective demands would inflict — draconian impositions which would impact essential programs that support students, punish teachers for being sick, strip away rights, and constrain our teachers’ ability to best serve their students,” Altomare-DiNunzio said.
The planned job action by Toronto’s Catholic elementary school teachers comes just two weeks after schools were permitted to return to in-person learning following a nearly month-long closure.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said that the “most recent provocations” by the union are an “affront to the interests of children who deserve to be in school.”
“On behalf of tens of thousands of families who seek stability as Ontario gets through the challenges of Omicron: call off the strikes,” he said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Families shocked after Niagara Falls hotel cancels bookings made year in advance of solar eclipse
After having the foresight to book their Niagara Falls hotel rooms more than a year in advance, several families planning to take in the solar eclipse next month were shocked to find out their reservations had been cancelled.
B.C. rescuers face 'high likelihood' of failure to reunite orphaned orca with pod
The race to reunite an orphaned orca calf that’s stuck in a shallow lagoon with a neighbouring pod has entered its fifth day, and a marine scientist says the clock is ticking.
Video shows police interrupting auto theft in progress outside Toronto home
New video footage obtained by CP24 shows the attempted theft of a vehicle in a North York driveway earlier this month that was ultimately interrupted by police.
Majority of Canadians believe in life after death: Angus Reid survey
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe in some form of life after death, a proportion that has held steady for decades.
MyPillow, owned by U.S. election denier Mike Lindell, formally evicted from Minnesota warehouse
A court ordered the eviction Wednesday of MyPillow from a suburban Minneapolis warehouse that it formerly used.