Time running out on offer to teachers

Elementary school union says it's not budging until funding gap for students addressed

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Kristin Rushowy

Ontario's public school teachers now have less than one week to sign collective agreements with their boards or lose a 12 per cent pay raise offer over the next four years.

By contrast, almost all of the province's French and Catholic teachers have already hammered out four-year contracts with their boards, with the salary increase.

"There's no extra money," Premier Dalton McGuinty said last week. "I think we've all got to keep in mind what's happened to our economy. If we're able to land those kinds of agreements with the overwhelming majority of the sector, then I would appeal to those who have yet to see things the way that everybody else is to come to the table. Let's get this done."

If deals aren't struck by Nov. 30, the offer drops to 2 per cent a year over each of two years, with none of the improvements to prep time and supervision.

Public high school teachers continue to negotiate at "provincial discussion tables," where big-ticket items like salaries and prep time are hammered out before contracts are signed at the local level, and more talks are scheduled this week.

However, the head of the 73,000-member Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario says his union won't be at the table until the province makes a commitment to "close the gap" in funding between elementary and secondary students, which would cost about $900 million.

"I realize there are imminent financial challenges, but clearly, on a go-forward basis this is the type of investment the government should be looking to for the future of the province," said union president David Clegg.

The province's offer would see the top-earning elementary teacher at $94,000 a year at the end of the four years. Clegg said while the salary offer is acceptable, his members want more money in the system for smaller class sizes in the upper elementary grades, more specialist teachers and guidance counsellors, combined with increased preparation time and less supervision time. In all, up to 8,000 more teaching jobs would be created at a time of declining enrolment.

The Liberal government has cut the "gap" by more than half since taking office through smaller primary class sizes as well as funds for literacy programs, among other things. The union pegs the gap at $711 per student but it is actually less than $500 per student, according to education ministry sources.

Rick Johnson, past president of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association, says in terms of workload, the elementary teachers are asking for the equivalent of one day a week out of the classroom.

"There's a lot in the (provincial) template offer that's really good for kids," he said. "Does it address all of ETFO's concerns? Probably not. But in any bargaining, it's got to be give or take."

Education Minister Kathleen Wynne said she's encouraged that the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation is at the provincial tables and that it's frustrating that ETFO refuses.

"We are encouraging ETFO to come back," Wynne said Friday. "... I know the provisions are reasonable. I want all elementary teachers to have access to those enhancements."

The agreements Catholic and French teachers have signed on to include smaller class sizes in Grades 4 to 8, additional arts and specialist teachers, more custodians, and more elementary school secretaries – issues that Johnson says address the union's concerns about the gap between elementary and secondary conditions.

Clegg said he doesn't like having a deadline imposed, and that as it stands, it would take 30 years to get upper elementary classes down to the size of secondary classes.

"They've created an ultimatum (the Nov. 30 deadline) that begs the question as to whether they want to solve the problem or force the issue to come to a head."

When asked about the possibility of a strike, Clegg said: "Our members may have to choose whether they have to be forced into a long-term collective agreement that doesn't address their major concern."