———————-
ETFO Statement Regarding Central Table Bargaining
May 11, 2015
Here is a statement from Sam Hammond, President of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.
“The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario returned to the central bargaining table this morning at the mediator’s request. It was our expectation that the government and the Ontario Public School Board Association (OPSBA) would remove concessions from the table. That did not happen and the meeting ended at 11:00 a.m.”
“ETFO will continue phase one of its work-to-rule strike action. In order for real progress to be made at the central table, OPSBA and the Liberal government need to reconsider their concession-based approach to central bargaining.”
“When these concessions were initially tabled, OPSBA and the government stated that they were ‘opening positions’ only. ETFO would like to move beyond opening positions to meaningful bargaining.”
ETFO’s 73,000 teacher and occasional teacher members will remain in schools to carry out their instructional duties with students, provide extra help to students and maintain contact with parents. Teacher voluntary extra-curricular activities and scheduled field trips will continue for the duration of the phase 1 work-to-rule. The strike action is incremental in nature and will continue until bargaining issues are resolved or ETFO deems further actions are required.
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario represents 76,000 elementary public school teachers, occasional teachers and education professionals across the province.