Local schools open as high school teachers walkout across Ontario

By Robert Champagne

BELLEVILLE – As high school teachers elsewhere in Ontario participate in the fourth week of walkouts to protest stalled contract negotiations, Hastings and Prince Edward high schools will be open on Wednesday.

Limestone District School Board is the only board nearby being effected. With others spread out across the province.

Contract negotiations have continued into the new year after eight-months of talks which still have not resulted in a resolution.

Scott Marshall, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation District 29 president in Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board, said in an interview that the decision to walk out is made at the provincial level, not by the local unions.

“We [OSSTF] are trying to choose the boards in a way that minimizes the effect on students, but will still show that we are serious about negotiations,” he said.

Marshall believes the boards are chosen based on size and geographical location.

The first job action began on Nov. 26 with the withdrawal of services across the province. It was quickly followed up by the first province-wide walkout on Dec. 4.

Since December, the rotating walkouts affected several local school boards, as well as major school boards such as Toronto District School Board and Peel District School Board which are the first and second-largest boards in the country.

This week’s walkout could potentially affect 6,630 secondary students at the Limestone District School Board but Peel, which is also walking out this week, represents 42,080 students.

The Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board has 4,473 secondary students.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation made an offer to withdraw their plans for the walkout if the Ontario government agrees to limit class sizes to 22 students instead of the proposed 25.

According to the teachers’ federation, the main sticking point of contract negotiations is class size increases as well as mandatory e-learning, which is set to start in Sept. 2020. The e-learning requirement will have students take two online classes per year instead of traditional in-person classes.

Critics of the e-learning plan say it isn’t fair to all students who learn differently or don’t have regular access to reliable internet and a computer.

The Minister of Education Stephen Lecce has said teachers are only interested in increasing their income and not helping students.

“…we will continue to vigorously champion the interests of students and seek stability for parents in 2020, who are frustrated and tired of the union-led escalation that began in 2019. This continued strike action is unfair to students and their families,” said Lecce in a press release on Jan. 3.

The public teachers’ union won’t speculate on if the chance for a strike has increased going into the new year.

The Ontario Catholic English Teachers’ Association has been in a legal strike position since Dec. 21 but they haven’t made any public statements since then.

Four of the biggest teachers unions in the province are also taking the Ontario government to court over legislation that caps public sector wage increases.

In a joint statement, the unions said that unilaterally limiting wage increases is a violation of worker’s rights to collective bargaining. The supreme court ruled in 2007 that the right to bargain collectively is protected as an exercise of freedom of association.

The map below shows the current areas effected by the impending job-action.