Opening Statement



Thursday 2 July 2015

Teacher Free Speech Summer 2015 Contract Guide!

My Blogsite Acronym Guide is @ Here! 



September 1, 2015


Details on the OECTA ratification vote:
At their Special Meeting today, the OECTA Council of Presidents voted to accept the Tentative Agreement proposed by the Provincial negotiating team and the Provincial Executive and to recommend it to the membership for ratification.  Tomorrow morning the details of the Tentative Agreement and a summary will be available on the Members’ site of the OECTA web page.  On Thursday, a video summary of the proposed settlement will also be posted.
On Monday September 14 at 4:30, TSU will host a General Meeting at the Ontario Federation of Labour Building (15 Gervais Dr.) to review the proposal and deal with questions.   On September 10, voting credentials will be sent to all members for internet voting (remember to record your number!)  Voting on the Tentative Agreement will take place Thursday September 17 – all day.  More details will follow.

August 25, 2015

OECTA tentative deal reached! Code of Silence remains tightly in effect with few to no details. Many members report only finding out about the deal from the media again like in 2012. I have it on good word that OECTA was determined not to sign a deal before any of the other affiliates this time around. Wonder if that's significant with the timing? @ Blog w/ Links!

August 20, 2015

OSSTF reaches a tentative deal!!! President Elliott dedicates a lot of his speech to the "Heave Steve" agenda. Wonder if that is a part of the [unofficial] deal? Trudeau Libs could be in bug trouble in Ontario come the October federal election! News links, video and commentary continues on my blog @ Here!!!

ETFO Sam Hammond announces ETFO WTR Phase 2 strategy @ Link

MOE Education Sector Bargaining Labour Info and Updates @ Link



August 18, 2015

See and hear ETFO President Sam Hammond's opening address for yourself at the union's 2015 Annual Meeting. This year's theme is "Bargaining for the Future, Respecting Our Past" @ Hammond

Visit the three main teacher union sites for info on the key issues in the tortured MOE OPSBA contract talks: OECTA @ Here! ETFO @ Here! OSSTF @ There!

August 14, 2015

OECTA resumed talks August 12 + 13th. ETFO and OSSTF are scheduled for August 18 + 19th. MOE Sandals continues to insist a deal is possible before classes resume in September. Apparantly the unions were at an impasse, OECTA having amost reached a deal before exhausting the possibilities. ETFO and OSSTF had been insisting they would not return until key demands for teacher concessions were removed from the table.

What's really going on?!? Links to follow, also see below .....

More timely news links are also being forwarded during summer hours via my twitter acount @davdchiarelli

August 6, 2015


AEFO enters conciliation @ Globe

What is "Conciliation?" A "No-Board" report?!? Answers @ Here

CUPE's 55,000 education support workers will now also be in a position to join teacher fall strike actions too @ CUPE

CUPE Local 2537 expresses our education support workers frustration at being ignored by the government during the teacher labour talks to date @ CUPE



Commentary:

The perfect storm continues to unfold as AEFO and CUPE now also move into position for job actions this fall. WTR seems to be the first and most immediate strategy on most minds. Barring any surprise OLP collaboration, and surprise deals, the teachers and education workers would seem to have created a formidable front to further their "no concession bargaining" goals during the difficult school year head.

Some suggested "look fors": 

As in the spring, the Wynne majority Liberal government will be mightily tempted to legislate rather than negotiate their unacceptable demands in the form of a new contract. Meet the new Mike Harris OLP! It could even prove a popular move with the public, to the detriment of the cause, when done so alongside the continued teacher bashing media campaign being carried out by the OPSBA

Watch for the teacher unions to use strike action sparingly at first, with widespread prolonged strike actions possibly used moreso as a part of the "end game" for an arbitrated settlement, or to mount another lengthy, constitutional challenge, which could possibly prove much more iffy for the OLP!

Watch for OPSBA to promptly attempt to resume the public boards OLRB case, still unresolved from 2013, over whether EC's should be considered voluntary or not @ [Link]

The right to exercise civil disobedience, like the right to strike are democratic principles that cannot be excluded from the teacher strategic arsenal as all else fails. Fickleness, a Vichy Mentality, government collaboration, and/or going it alone for one's own advantage have often crippled Ontario's teacher union movement in the past. Experience has definitely taught that responsible, and committed unionists will need to remain eternally vigilant lest we get sold out by our "leaderships" backroom deals again. With the stakes so high, there won't be another next time this time around .....


Wynne majority gov't settles comfortably into office! Hey! No wait! That's .....

July 23, 2015

OECTA President Ann Hawkins tells the Toronto Star that the Catholic teacher union was close to a deal in June;

After 14 days of bargaining in June, we were very positive. We thought we were close to a deal. But their last pass to us actually went backwards. So I had to say to them, we’re going to be exercising our options. We’re hoping that they get serious and provide us with a proposal that I could actually get ratified. [Link]
The OECTA Code of Silence is still firmly in place at the uppermost of the toppermost! There's no reference to this, ahem, little detail .... in any of the OECTA "Strike Updates" sent by the union to keep rank and file members in the loop and up to date. Not in June. Not now. But Ann tells the Toronto Star. Interesting slip up!

July 16, 2015

In it's July 15th confidential strike update emailed to members July 15 and leaked by The Daily Observer [Link], OECTA provided guidelines for it's anticipated September work-to-rule campaign. The email claims that the “goal is to obtain a negotiated settlement.”


The 33 regulations include 28 services teachers are to withdraw. Among these are:

  • Not participating in the preparation of report card comments.
  • Not being permitted to take work materials home – all marking, planning and preparation within the 300-minute instructional day.
  • Not attending meetings or undertake tasks related to any Ministry of Education initiatives.
  • Not attending staff meetings, department meetings, divisional meetings, curriculum nights, meet-the-teacher nights, parent/teacher interviews or any other such activity.
  • Not to mentor or provide extra help during lunch or prep time, or outside of the regular class schedule.
There is a "Catholic exception": OECTA teachers will be permitted to participate in the "sacramental preparation of students" during their 300-minute instructional day.

For a full list see the OECTA Memo Here!

OECTA would seem to have exhausted their sole focus on the PDT talk option to their satisfaction. With OSSTF announcing that their WTR strategy kicks in on July 20th Star, all 3 major Ontario teacher unions are now in virtual lock step for a province wide WTR, public and Catholic, when classes resume this fall! 


July 2, 2015

This blog continues my indie coverage of the Ontario teacher and education worker union contract talks. It provides a DIY guide to resource materials and news links so you can follow the progress or lack thereof to date. You can review the resources, info and news links to date for last spring @ Here! Last winter @ There! Last fall @ Here! Last summer @ There! 

Also, my Teacher Free Speech Guide to Bill 122 [CB Act] 2014 is @ Bill 122

Possibly, there will be little to report until we approach September. We will have to wait to see. Please continue to check back, and use the Comment space below. All hell could break lose, like with the surprise OECTA MOU on July 5, 2012. If so, this will be a very busy summer blog indeed!



Meanwhile, contract stripping and management control issues still continue to dominate teacher union concerns. There has been very little noticeable progress on either. The Wynne OLP has clearly demonstrated that they would rather legislate than negotiate a deal. OPSBA has been actively engaged in an ongoing disinformation and teacher bashing media campaign. AEFO, CUPE, ETFO, OECTA, OSSTF face little option but to advise their members to prepare for widespread teacher strike actions when classes resume this fall.

This spring saw the province's collective teacher union membership exercise overwhelming strike action votes within the mid nineties range. OSSTF's "Magnificent 7" strategy [Here!] launched the first local teacher strikes at targeted boards across the province. Meanwhile ETFO moved forward with the first two stages of it's administrative WTR plan [Phase 1] [2]. OECTA handed out buttons and by the end of June had filed for conciliation too, like ETFO and OSSTF. See @ [CTV][CNW][Star]


You will find the latest new links added above as they become available over the course of the summer holidays. Stay tuned!

We live in very interesting times indeed! My latest teacher union and political party news coverage also continues on the Teacher Free Speech Summer News + Views blog @ []. Coverage of the important developments this year to date can be found throughout my monthly news and views blogs @ Jan @ Feb @ March @ April @ May and @ June



Thucydides [500 BC] warned that those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. Don't let that be you! As responsible teacher free speech unionists, we want to support the strike effort, but to do so knowledgeably, with our eyes wide open, even though any real "hard information" is often not forthcoming [Here!]. You will find my Teacher Free Speech News Archive Link 2011-15 useful to help understanding what happened before, over the years; the good, the bad and the ugly, so we hopefully won't repeat the same problems again. Explore as need be @ Teacher News Archive!

Finally, no matter how trying it gets in the days ahead, always remember, we NEED teacher unions, but ones that truly serve their members first, foremost and always, for we are the union. So, of course, we support our union strike actions to secure a fair and just contract deal, according to our traditional union values. However at the same time, as responsible, well educated and concerned members we mustn't also be afraid to think, discuss, talk and ask questions, while we educate ourselves and others to try to make sure that is so. Let's keep our teacher unions on track working on our best behalf! Here then is why you need a teacher union Link!

In Solidarity!

David C



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