The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) has ramped up its work-to-rule job action once again, with the possibility of rolling one-day strikes in October.
Talks broke down between the union, the province and the Ontario Public School Board Association (OPSBA) on Sept. 11.
One week later, the ETFO, which represents more than 76,000 elementary school teachers across the province, announced it would begin phase three of its work-to-rule job action.
Upper Grand ETFO president Gundi Barbour explained that in addition to phase one and two conditions, elementary teachers will not:
– communicate electronically or by phone with their administrator except during certain emergency situations;
– update class websites or blogs;
– complete comments on progress reports (but they will submit a non-electronic version of student grades to their administrator);
– do additional work during prep time; and
– fill in for absent teachers, with the exception of occasional teachers hired as a replacement.
“Students will not be impacted,” Barbour said.
“Teachers are going to be in their classrooms, they’re going to do all of their instruction duties with students, they’ll continue to provide voluntary extracurricular stuff, so you still have your clubs and your teams going on and the only other thing might be, we’re not going to participate in things like the barbecue or those kinds of things. “
However, teachers won’t participate in any extracurricular activities on Wednesdays, even if there is something scheduled for that day.
“No after-school practices, nothing,” Barbour said of what union officials have dubbed “Wynne Wednesdays.”
She explained those days “are a way to … focus on what’s really important and that is (the) education of students and … we’re not going to do any activities that take us away from the classroom or the focus that we have on students, teaching and supervision.”
Since talks broke off at the central bargaining table on Sept. 11, there hasn’t been any discussion about resuming negotiations. ETFO officials have stated rotating one-day strikes are a possibility in October if progress is not made.
“We’re waiting to be invited back to the negotiating table,” Barbour explained.
In an email statement education minister Liz Sandals said, “It is disappointing to hear that ETFO is escalating job action and that the withdrawal of services will further disrupt students’ learning in the classroom.”
Sandals said the government and the OPSBA tabled a “comprehensive” proposal to ETFO that “mirrors” deals reached with the unions representing secondary school, English Catholic and French language teachers.
“We are confident that an agreement can be reached within the parameters presented to ETFO and we are prepared to resume discussions on that basis,” Sandals said.
Barbour said the ETFO hasn’t had a fair chance to negotiate a deal appropriate for its teachers, noting secondary teachers had 29 days of negotiations, while ETFO has had just 11.
“I think the most important thing is, bargaining a fair deal … that meets the needs of elementary students and teachers takes time and the minister, Liz Sandals, hasn’t given us the time,” she said. “They offered us … some of the same conditions that they offered secondary school teachers but secondary school teachers have different provisions to begin with.”
For example, Barbour said secondary schools have a smaller cap for class sizes.
Phase three of the ETFO work-to-rule job action is now in effect and phase four rolling strikes will depend on the status of negotiations in October.
