Unions say Ontario teachers likely won't have contracts before school year, citing slow pace of bargaining

For the second year in a row, teachers across the province will be returning to school in September without a collective agreement and the unions representing Ontario’s educators are expressing frustration with the slow pace of bargaining.

Last year thousands of education workers walked off the job following a decision by the Ford government to impose a contract on them, briefly resulting in the closure of most schools.

The union representing the workers eventually reached an agreement with the government but the others unions that make up the province’s education sector have remained without a new contract.

While the union leaders seem certain that students and teachers will head back to the classroom after Labour Day, the fate of the rest of the school year appears to be a bit murkier.

Ontario’s four main teachers’ unions have been without a contract since last summer and three of the four union leaders spoke to CP24.com to provide an update on the ongoing negotiations. They all indicated that there has been a lack of real progress at the bargaining table after more than a year of contract talks.

In a statement emailed to CP24.com, a spokesperson for Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the Ford government has been “bargaining in good faith over the past several months” and aims to secure “a deal that keeps kids in class, provides parents with stability, and treats educators fairly.”

But union leaders say it seems unlikely that deals will be reached before the start of the school year. Here is a look at what the union leaders have said about the ongoing negotiations with the province:

ELEMENTARY TEACHERS' FEDERATION OF ONTARIO (ETFO)

Karen Brown, the president of ETFO, which represents 83,000 elementary teachers, occasional teachers, and education workers in Ontario, said the union has two bargaining dates with the province at the end of this month.

“What I can say is that we are extremely disappointed with how the process is going,” Brown said.

Earlier this week, ETFO filed a complaint with the province's labour tribunal, accusing the province of failing to bargain in good faith following the release of an education memorandum last month.

“This government has not come to the table with a serious intent to bargain,” she told CP24.com. “What we have seen is a continued circumventing of the bargaining process.”

She added that the union is “not confident that much will occur” when the two sides meet later this month.

When asked about a potential strike vote in the fall, she said, “I think we are prepared to do whatever is necessary to move this government.”

“Classrooms are overcrowded. We are coming back from a pandemic. We all want stability and we want students in school,” she said.

“Our members want to be in school but this government has to really look at the issues that are on the bargaining table and maintain that stability that they want to see by engaging in good faith bargaining, not by arbitrarily introducing new policies to circumvent our collective bargaining process.”

ASSOCIATION DES ENSEIGNANTES ET DES ENSEIGNANTS FRANCO-ONTARIENS (AEFO)

A spokesperson for AEFO, which represents about 13,000 teachers and other education workers in Ontario's French-language public schools, confirmed that they have three dates set aside for negotiations at the end of this month but no further comment was provided.

ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION (OECTA)

René Jansen in de Wal, the president of OECTA, said while he remains “optimistic” and “committed to working very hard” to get a deal, the province has been “reticent to get to the issues at the table.”

“I’m very frustrated. We have been bargaining since last July and the government had failed to give more than a couple of dates a month which is not a good structure for bargaining,” he said.

The union has three days scheduled this month for negotiating with the province and he said he is focused on making progress on those dates.

While he expects teachers and students will return to the classroom in September, he added that if significant progress isn’t made soon, it would be “a mistake to assume” that bargaining will continue the way it did last year.

“If the government isn’t able to energize a bargaining progress, then other steps are going to have to be taken,” he said.

“You can say you are bargaining in good faith but set the dates and come and actually have real conversations and deal with the real issues. Let’s do that. Because saying it doesn’t do it, being at the table does.”

ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION (OSSTF/FEESO)

Speaking to CP24.com this week, Karen Littlewood, the president of OSSTF, which represents about 60,000 teachers and education workers, said as it currently stands, there are no bargaining dates on the books for teachers in her union and only one date in August for education workers.

“We have maybe had 25 days for each one of those tables respectively over the course of the year,” she said.

Littlewood said while it is not unusual to go a year without a contract, going much beyond that is “expecting a lot of the people working in education.”

“We are hearing about the arbitration that the nurses had… we are hearing about male dominated sectors like police, and fire, and power workers getting substantial raises, and we have a government who budgeted for a 1.25 per cent increase for people working in education,” she said.

Littlewood said a strike vote seems likely at this point given how little has been accomplished over the past year.

“Now we are heading into the second year without a collective agreement and it makes sense that we would be turning to probably a strike vote to see that we have the membership behind us to apply more pressure to say to the government you need to invest in the students of the province,” Littlewood said.

“We took all year and they could have had more dates. We could have actually made some progress but we didn’t so that tells us that there is no real mandate from the government to the bargaining table. We don’t meet with the minister of education, he is not there. But I assume he knows what’s going on and there is no indication that they want to have a deal.”

She said class sizes, educational supports for the de-streaming process, and wages continue to be key issues for her membership.

“Money is a big deal. We’ve had over 10 years without any sort of increase and our members keep falling behind,” she said.

She noted that teachers are also expressing concern over Bill 98, which expands the minister’s power over school boards and allows boards to hire teacher candidates who have not yet graduated to help with the staffing shortages.

“The government is saying we are going hire people who are still in teachers’ college. We are going to have people who are unqualified filling absences in the classroom,” Littlewood said.

“I think the parents need to be speaking out about that and saying we need these highly qualified individuals to be in the classroom with the students. We only get one opportunity to educate the students.”

In a statement to CP24.com, Grace Lee, a spokesperson for Ontario’s education minister, pointed to the areas where the government has invested in public education.

“We have increased education funding by nearly $700 million more this upcoming school year, including the hiring of 2,000 more educators, and are committed to boosting student success in the classroom with a focus on reading, writing and math,” the statement read. “We’ll continue to negotiate in good faith to get a deal that keeps students in class.”

Lee said the government in total, has met with the various education sector unions 170 times over the past year.

"While teacher unions have reduced their availability over the past two summers, we remain available everyday to negotiate a deal that keeps students in class and improves the outcomes of students."

Littlewood said while there are no dates set for negotiating a new contract for teachers, she’s available to meet.

“We have put out our availability for dates in September but if the government wanted to come to the table now, I’m available, our bargaining team is available. We would be there. But we are not going to do it if they are just going to say no, 1.25 per cent. There is no point. I’m not taking a deal like that to my members,” she said.

Nearly 800,000 public sector workers in Ontario were subject to Bill 124, which was passed into 2019 and limited wage increases to one per cent per year over a three-year period. That bill was ruled unconstitutional last fall and the province has appealed the decision. Through arbitration, nurses in the province have since secured a wage increase of about 11 per cent over two years.

UNIONS MAY HAVE MORE PUBLIC SUPPORT THAN IN PREVIOUS YEARS, PROF SAYS

Stephanie Ross, an associate professor of labour studies at McMaster University, told CP24.com that the unions are dealing with a host of complex issues that are very difficult to resolve when the two sides are only meeting a few days a month.

“To increase the pace of bargaining, the unions don’t have a lot of choices,” she said, adding that a strike vote would signal to the province that they are losing patience.

“It seems to me right now the government is really dictating the pace of bargaining to its advantage and so it really puts the unions on the spot to figure out what steps do they want and need to take in order to get bargaining moving in a serious direction.”

She noted that it can be risky for unions to threaten labour action but noted that the current economic climate may help sway public support in their favour.

“I think the conditions are much more positive for public support than they have been in decades. I think that inflation does generate a lot of sympathy for workers whose wages are not increasing according to the pace of inflation,” Ross said.

“Even amongst groups of workers who are at least perceived to be relatively well paid, the inflation and cost of living crisis is making affordability an issue for them as well… I think the general climate is certainly tilted toward workers and labour action.”

While details of discussions at the bargaining table are not known, Ross said it would “not be helpful for the government to lowball teachers” when it comes to wage increases as workers in the province are “experiencing the effects of decades-high inflationary pressures.”

“All public sector workers in Ontario, with the exception of male-dominated fields like police and firefighters, have been subject to wage-repression legislation since the Ford government came into power,” she said.

“Even though that legislation was declared unconstitutional… the effect has still been there that teachers have also received for many years below inflation wage increases and now they are in a position where they have fallen behind.”

Ross said it appears the province is trying to take a “hard-bargaining” approach.

“They are in some ways daring teachers to escalate the conflict in I think the hopes that the teachers will wear the public reaction and criticism for there being instability in education,” she said.

“I’m not sure that they are right in that gamble.”