This morning Ontario experiences it's first teacher strikes since the Eves Government was defeated in 2003. The ETFO public elementary teachers have begun one day rotating strikes across the province. The OSSTF public secondary school teachers begin the full range of job actions including entering school 15 minutes before class, and leaving when the end of the day bell ends. Student strikes have begun as well as the students empty out into the school yards to protest the situation. It's a most regretful end to nearly 10 years of labour peace with Ontario's Liberal government.
I am speaking the obvious to my Ontario teacher readers, and anybody else who has been following my blog this fall. Interest has also spiked in other countries as the story goes international. Excuse me if sometimes I will be restating the obvious in the weeks ahead.
Each week, I will post a weekly teacher strike week blog with regularly updated news links. Other blogs on specific issues and themes will be added separately.
The teacher strikes will continue for two weeks until school ends for the Christmas holidays. The job actions will continue indefinitely. These are all voluntary duties our teachers do above and beyond their work contracts. Legal strikes will end when school return on January 7th. Midnight Dec 31 is the Ministry of Education's deadline for school board and teacher local collective agreement contracts to be reached.
After that provincial contract terms will be imposed where these have not been voluntarily reached. Bill 115, the controversial legislation giving the government these new provincial collective bargaining powers will then over ride existing labour law and impose upon the taachers and school boards the provinces contract terms.
Few local collective bargaining agreements have been reached. The OECTA Catholic teachers provincial executive unilaterally agreed to a controversial Memo of Understanding with the province on July 5th. However the local units and Catholic school boards still not ratified any agreements based upon the memo, with approximately 12 possible tentative agreements to be voted upon before the December 31 deadline. 1 OSSTF contract has been approved, 3 were voted down and defeated by the local membership.
You will find a list of the acronyms + so on used here, rather than explain each that comes up again + again during the next 2 weeks. Please keep checking back. If [when?] I miss any important ones please advise me accordingly in the Comment bar below.
BTAIM: Be that as it may.
BTW: By the way.
CA: the Collective Agreement contract between the teachers union and a school board
CB: the Collective Bargaining process or team which negotiates the contract
CBC: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television channel + news
CPC ML: Canadian Communist Party Marxist Leninist
CTV: Columbia Televison channel + news
CP24: City Pulse Channel 24 news Toronto
Derp/ Derpina: another way of calling somebody a "dumb ass"
Duh: Dumbfounded expression made famous by Baby Huey the duck.
Dunno: short for "I don't know"
DYL: Do It Yourself
ETFO: Elementary Teacher Federation of Ontario [President Sam Hammond]
GTA: Greater Toronto Area. The large populous urban regions just outside Toronto.
Hundo P: Absolutely 100%
Hmmmm: means "I need to think about that." The more "m's" the longer time needed to think..Hundo P: Absolutely 100%
IMHO: In my humble opinion
LCBT: Local Collective Bargaining Team
MOE: Ministry of Education [Education Minister Laurel Broten]
MOU: Memo of Understanding
MPP: Member Provincial Parliament
NDP: New Democratic Party [Party Leader Andrea Horwath]
OECTA: Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association [President Kevin O'Dwyer]
OECTA COP: Council of Presidents from each local unit across the province
OECTA TSU: Toronto Secondary Unit representing local Toronto high school teachers
OECTA PE: Provincial Executive
OFL: Ontario Federation of Labour
OLP: Ontario Liberal Party [Premier Dalton McGuinty]
OLRB: Ontario Labour Relations Board of appeal
OLRA: Ontario Labour Relations Act
OMG: Oh my God! Expresses shock.
OSSTF: Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation [President Ken Coran]
PC: Provincial Conservatives [Party Leader Tim Hudak]
QP: Queen's Park Legislature, the Ontario provincial seat of government in Toronto
SAB 115: Students Against Bill 115
SMH: Shake my head
Snoozefest: indicates "very boring", you will be falling asleep [also see Zzzzzz]
TCDSB: Toronto catholic School Board
TDSB: Toronto District School Board
TVO: Televison Ontario. A provincially government owned arms length t.v. station.
WTF: What the F#%k! Expresses anger or dismay.
Zzzzzzzz: indicates somebody or something is putting you to sleep.
#%$@*&: [or some variation] Expresses any number of profanities. Take your pick.
9 comments:
Dear OECTA members:
We OWE it to our OSSTF and ETFO colleagues to REJECT any tentative deal put in front of us. We need to stand with them and reject Bill 115 in whatever way we can!
We OWE it to OURSELVES to send a message to O'Dwyer/Jarvis et al that the deal they made on our behalf was unacceptable.
We OWE it to OURSELVES to also not willingly accept contract stripping.
OECTA members: STAND UP and VOTE NO to the MoU!
Signed,
An OECTA classroom teacher colleague.
Dave,
Is this round of contract talks harder (more complex) as a result of the various unions not being on the same page? I would think ETFO striking without other unions doing the same is going to be hard on their members' resolve. Thoughts?
I know a lot of OSSTF members think they should take a stronger stand. Look how they are turning down their tentative contracts! If anything i think ETFO is strenghthening the more militant resolve and i wish we were all out there with them. If all the unions could do that together I dare say we could bring any provincial government to its knees. Look at the 1998 province wide protest. Unfortunately somebody always blinks first . This time it was OECTA exec. United we stand divided we fall.
We should be protesting weekly outside OECTA Provincial headquarters! They caused this mess by betraying their membership. Do that and we will get press coverage! What are they going to do about it-discipline us? Think lots of lawyers would like a piece of that!
There is nothing illegal about it. I get a fair number of reporters calling me up now a days. Email me your names and phone#'s and I will connect you with them if they need a story.Can't promise anything but sooner or later it's going to happen anyway.
If you want to make a story happen you just get a bus load of teachers and call the info desks at all the big dailies in advance with a time and a place. We used to do it all the time while fighting Tories during the Harris Years. I call it street theatre. It was widely used by the "Students for a Democratic Society" during the Vietnam war but I wouldn't be surprised if they got it from somebody else before. OSSTF D12 has a crew who excels at this. I'm afraid they are way head of us in mobilizing now a days. Too bad. OECTA once was very good at this too.
Regret I am falling behind in my replies. Yes! It will be a total horror show if they ratify the local contract tomorrow. I know I have readers up that way and they are just hearing about how great it is. I think that's apart of the info strategy with the MOU. We are all separate and apart for a reason. I think so.
Time for small groups to form in towns...we could call them David Chiarelli Activist Groups. Time for the Chiarelli Free Press Democracy Bus to descend on OECTA Provincial Office? I will help organize and pay.
OECTA members should protest at the OECTA Provincial Office-can we invite ETFO/OSSTF/CUPE/OPSEU friends?
You want to set something up I can handle communications and media.
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