High school teachers on strike in Peel Board

May 6, 2015 · 0 Comments

By Bill Rea
Both sides seem to be blaming each other as secondary teachers on the Peel District School Board went on strike early Monday morning.
This came after four days of negotiations, which ended earlier in the morning. The Board reported talks concluded when provincial representatives of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) walked away.
Mike Bettiol, president of District 19 (Peel) of OSSTF, said Tuesday it’s hard to say how long the strike will last.
“It’s going to continue until we reach a collective agreement that our members can ratify,” he said.
“In going ahead with the strike, they proved what boards have known all along — there’s no sincere commitment by provincial OSSTF to reach a local settlement; they’re just using the excuse of not reaching local agreements as a cover for their strategy to pressure the provincial table,” Board Chair Janet McDougald said in a statement issued Monday morning. “Not only is that disingenuous, it’s actually irresponsible to disrupt the school year for 42,000 Peel secondary students as a political tactic. There is no legitimate reason for Peel schools to be on strike — none.”
She added the Board has been committed to reaching and agreement and avoiding a strike.
“I personally shared our board commitment to reaching a fair, negotiated settlement,” McDougald stated. “That is the right choice for our students, parents and Peel secondary teachers.”
Bettiol said a negotiating session is planned for sometime in May, but at this stage, it’s “iffy” if it will take place.
“If the Board wants to get back together, certainly we would be interested in talking some more,” he added.
Bettiol said the issues in this action are not monetary, as is often the case in strikes.
They involve things like teacher evaluation, which he said is required every five years. Some parts of this evaluation are prescribed by legislation, but others are at the discretion of administration. That leaves room for variations among individual administrators on how the evaluations should be conducted. Bettiol added this issue has been raised since August. “They never got back to us,” he said, adding the teachers want these matters clarified in the collective agreement.
He also said the amount teachers get reimbursed for professional development has been cut back and they want it restored to where it was
“I don’t wish to debate the notion that we were not ‘serious’ about these talks,” McDougald commented. “Not including the most recent dates, we have met seven times; we presented a full brief weeks ago. We asked for multiple dates in March to keep the process moving and we were not given those dates by OSSTF-Peel.”
She added there had been successful negotiation on more than 100 individual clauses and 24 articles or letters of agreement. “By any reasonable measure — that’s progress.”
Bettiol questioned whether there had been real progress. He said some of those 100 clauses included items that the two sides came to the table in agreement on. And almost all the rest of them were basically housekeeping items.
“Really, we haven’t accomplished anything of substance,” he said.
“At this point, we have been besieged with parent and student concerns about final marks, end-of-year plays and athletics, commencements, proms and so much more,” McDougald said. “The same is true, I am sure, in Durham and Rainbow.”
“We are also seeing some in our community begin to severely criticize our local teachers for their actions,” she added. “That is unfair — and we have said so. This is not a local decision — it’s a provincial take-over — disguised as local action. What provincial OSSTF is doing is clearly not in the best interest of students, families or their own local members.”

Teachers were on the picket line outside Mayfield Secondary School Monday morning, the first day of the high school teachers’ strike against the Peel District School Board.
Photo by Bill Rea