Elementary Teachers Announce to Be in Legal Strike Position on May 10

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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A press release issued by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario Public has announced that it will be in a legal position to start a strike from May 10 onwards. The statement highlighted that ETFO members have been without a contract since Aug. 31, 2014, and central bargaining has been on hold since February when the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) and the Liberal government tabled demands that would strip ETFO members’ collective agreements, erode their working conditions and reduce teachers’ ability to use their professional judgment when providing instruction and support to students. 

In the statement, ETFO President Sam Hammond mentioned that “a ‘no board’ report doesn’t mean negotiations have ended. ETFO continues to be open to meaningful bargaining that meets the needs and respects the professionalism of our members. But ETFO members are running out of patience. They’ve seen the changes that OPSBA, in particular, has been demanding. Our members are telling us they are deeply offended by the insinuations that their professional practice needs to be policed by OPSBA.” Furthermore, Hammond alleged that “Ontario’s teachers are highly skilled professionals who are largely responsible for this province being one of the best performing education systems in the world. That is something all Ontarians should be proud of. Our members didn’t need OPSBA’s agenda of control and micromanagement to achieve that result.”

Conclusively, Hammond pointed out that “the world’s best education systems give highly skilled teachers the professional autonomy they need to provide the best learning possible for their students. How can school board administrators, who are not in the classroom, know better than teachers how to manage classrooms?”

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