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The bell is about to ring for 73,000 public school elementary teachers and it won't be welcomed the way it is at the end of the school day.
If their union doesn't return to the bargaining table tomorrow, they stand to lose a 12 per cent pay hike, over four years, and other contract improvements. Come Monday, the provincial offer drops to just 4 per cent over two years.
But David Clegg, president of the elementary teachers union, is holding out for parity in funding with the high schools. That could cost the province up to $880 million – on top of the $800 million the elementary teachers are already being offered.
Clegg has a point when he says tomorrow is an "unreasonable, artificial" government deadline. It's understandable the province wants to get it over with, and the financial package on offer has already been agreed to by all the other teachers unions in the province. But the public elementary teachers are still working. Why not just wait them out?
Clegg is on much shakier ground though, when he says he won't agree to talk until the province commits to fixing the gap between elementary and high-school funding. Among other things, that would mean more "prep time" for elementary teachers and less time spent with their young charges. That, in turn, would involve the hiring of thousands more teachers at a time of falling enrolment.
It was a tough argument back in June, when Clegg walked away from the table. Now, with the economy tanking, even Clegg's fellow union leaders are scratching their heads.
