The response from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation was to walk out, end talks with a conciliator and move towards starting a strike on or close to Remembrance Day.
“The proposal that we received this morning is, in fact, worse than the Ford government’s original plan,” said OSSTF President Harvey Bischof.
Funny, I thought the proposal from Premier Doug Ford’s PC government to increase the average class size from 22 to 28 was the end of public education! Teachers and their supporters have said that if the increase goes forward, schools would be gutted.
So how can scaling that back be such a bad thing?
Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced on Thursday — as the Ford cabinet was meeting — that the government had offered to scale back the class size increase to an average of 25 students.
“We are proposing a significant reduction in class sizes from 28 to 25 with one aim in mind that is keeping kids in class,” Lecce told reporters are Queen’s Park.
The offer had been made as provincial negotiators met with OSSTF negotiators with the help of a conciliator. Despite the presence of the conciliator and the offer to move on class size, the meeting lasted less than 45 minutes before the union walked out and announced they wanted to move towards a legal strike position.
Lecce said the actions of the union threaten the stability that parents want this school year.
“They opted to escalate at a time and we are trying to de-escalate, get a deal and keep the parties to the table. I think the contrast could not be more clear,” Lecce said.
Indeed, it couldn’t be more clear so I’m not really sure why the province is trying to play nice and offer concessions to the teachers’ union bosses, who obviously want to play hardball and head to a strike in order to get everything they want. The union wants no movement on class size — basically a return to 22-student maximum average — and a 2% wage hike when the broader public service is getting 1% and many in the private sector are getting nothing.
First off, on the wages, none of us should feel bad for highschool teachers. The average OSSTF member earns $92,000 a year, according to figures from the Ministry of Education. Considering the average Canadian working full-time earns between $50,000-60,000 a year, those teachers demanding more pay are already doing very well.
Secondly, there are numerous studies showing class size is not tied to educational outcomes. That said, parents believe that it matters. They think smaller class sizes will help turn their kids into geniuses.
So, the province bended on what parents want and made a major concession to the union. The union’s response: Demand even larger raises — estimated to cost taxpayers a minimum of $1.5 billion in extra spending a year — while turning down the government on their class size concession.
The teachers unions in this province have claimed that under Ford, education spending has been slashed. That’s not true, it’s up more than $700 million.
They’ve also claimed thousands of teachers have been fired. That is also not true as more than 99% of the teachers employed last year are back, and the province created a special fund to make sure no teacher lost their jobs due to changes.
Teachers unions in this province have a history of fighting every single government no matter the party in power. They think that they are the ones who not only deserve more money from you and a better pension that most people will ever get, but also easier working conditions each year.
The Ford government is being reasonable here, maybe even too reasonable, and the union is denouncing them.
Remember that as the unions use your children as bargaining chips in the coming days.