A contract proposal offering Ontario’s Catholic teachers a three-year deal with no salary increases and “regressive changes,” to collective agreements will seriously erode teacher autonomy and demoralize the profession, according to the teachers’ union.

Deemed unacceptable by leadership, members of the 45,000-strong Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) got a look at the opening offer tabled this week by the provincial bargaining team represented by the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association (OCSTA) and the government.

In response, President James Ryan urged OECTA members to “indicate clearly and unambiguously,” that they don’t support it.

“…The Association will be asking all members to support a strike mandate as a public statement of our members’ resolve and as leverage to your provincial bargaining team that teachers must be respected and dealt with in a fair manner,” the bulletin distributed to membership said.

Among the points of contention is Regulation 274 which gives preference to supply teachers with the most seniority when it comes to long-term and full-time jobs. It also gives boards the power to decide which tests teachers use to assess such things as reading levels. Boards are concerned there will be a hodge-podge of tests with no consistency in assessments from year-to-year.

According to the OECTA website, about half of its teachers work in the Golden Horseshoe and Hamilton area, in Dufferin-Peel, Durham, Metro Toronto, Simcoe and York. There are more than 6,000 teachers in Toronto alone.

Secondary teachers make up 34 per cent of OECTA’s membership; elementary teachers 66 per cent.

In all, there are about 656,000 Catholic students in 1,401 Ontario schools — 234 secondary and 1,167 elementary schools.

This is the first offer to be tabled Under Bill 122 and the Revised Labour Relations Act which calls for two-tiered bargaining.

The process begins with OCSTA members and representatives of the government tabling proposals on all monetary issues such as salary, staffing and benefits. Local bargaining with area trustees is the second phase and deals with non-monetary issues such as rights and job security.

Both sides are to meet March 9, 10 and 11.