This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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The Finance Minister of Canada, Dwight Duncan, stated that teachers’ union of Ontario shall take lesson from the Ontario Public Service Employees Union on the topic of tough bargaining in difficult times. Duncan admired the style of negotiations used by OPSEU on Wednesday, when it agreed on a two-year wage freeze deal which will improve the condition of cash-strapped province as it deals with a deficit of $14.5 billion.
Duncan expressed remorse over the failed negotiations with the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, saying that “we put 700 hours of bargaining in. ETFO put one hour in before they walked away from the table.” He pointed out that similar agreement contract was forcefully imposed on its members last week, and “these are not easy times. ETFO can learn a lot from them (OPSEU).” All members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which are almost 35,280 in number, agreed on a tentative contract deal in the wee hours on Wednesday. None of the details about the contract are made public except the wage freeze. The previous collective agreement with OPSEU expired Dec. 31.
The president of OPSEU, Warren “Smokey” Thomas, informed that given the current harsh economic times “it is a very livable agreement and we will be recommending it to our membership to ratify.” Thomas admitted that “we didn’t get much in the way of improvements.” Unconfirmed sources report that the deal allows newer hires, still moving their way through the grid system, to get slight financial improvements.
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