teachers

Friday, January 11, 2013

Friday, January 11, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, January 11, 2013

About-face in teachers’ walkout

An Ontario labour board ruling that declared a planned walkout by the province’s elementary teachers an “unlawful strike” came too late for most parents who spent the morning in confusion.

Parents in the Greater Toronto Area and elsewhere across the province went to bed Thursday night being told that schools would be closed, regardless of how the Ontario Labour Relations Board ruled. But they woke to find that everything had changed, leading to a morning of confusion in which they tried to decide to go ahead with the childcare they had arranged or send their kids to class.

The OLRB didn’t make its ruling until 4 a.m., deciding that any move to protest during normal school hours Friday would be considered “unlawful.” That resulted in Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario President Sam Hammond grudgingly saying teachers should show up for work, as law-abiding citizens.

The problem was, parents who weren’t glued to their radios or TVs Friday morning didn’t get the memo, and many took the day off or took their kids to daycare providers anyway. Even among those schools that were opened, most classrooms were only partly full.

The Toronto District School Board said about half of students were absent from classes Friday, noting that the absence wouldn’t be counted against their record due to the confusion. The board compared attendance numbers to those of an overly-snowy day. (Source: CTV News)

Wednesday December 5, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday December 5, 2012

Dwight Duncan has warning for next Ontario Liberal leader

Tim Hudak asks Santa ‘Dwight Duncan’ to keep labor restrictions

A confidential report says Dwight Duncan has always been admirably frank as finance minister. His finger-wagging, however, is usually aimed at Tory and NDP rivals across the floor.

Now fellow Liberals are bearing the brunt of his bluntness.

In the race to replace Dalton McGuinty as premier, Duncan is watching warily from the sidelines, preparing his own exit strategy from provincial politics. And fussing over his fiscal legacy:

Après Dwight, le deluge?

“I don’t intend to go silently into the night,” he told the Toronto Board of Trade during a PowerPoint show outlining doomsday scenarios for Ontario’s fiscal future:

Tory tax cuts would add billions to the budget deficit and undermine government programs. NDP tax and wage hikes would imperil the economy.

But Duncan was also sending a clear message to the seven candidates vying for the Liberal leadership. The winner of the January convention will automatically inherit the premier’s office and dictate the terms of the next budget.

A few are straying from the party line by second-guessing the teachers’ dispute. Some candidates are hinting they would have handled the unions differently, deftly avoiding any imposed deals.

While they waver, Duncan disdains pussyfooting. He stressed Monday that the controversial Bill 115 must be deployed to ensure total payroll costs do not increase. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Monday September 3, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Monday September 3, 2012

Thousands take to Toronto streets

It may look like your typical parade — marchers marching, flags flying and pipers piping — but Toronto’s annual Labour Day parade is a unique blend of celebration and protest.

“These people have come out to show pride in their movement and the contributions it has made,” said John Cartwright, president of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council, which helped organize the event.

Cartwright estimated that up to 22,000 Ontario workers took to the Queen St. W. route Monday morning, including federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair. From teachers and nurses to firefighters and actors, union groups from across GTA were well represented.

As usual, the march mixed steel drum bands, dancing and cheering with banners demanding more rights for workers.

Cartwright said this year’s parade was especially important in light of recent labour conflicts, particularly between the Ontario government and the teacher’s union — which Cartwright called “an unprecedented attack” on teachers’ rights — and the Canadian economy’s sluggish recovery.

Gerard O’Neill, president of the Durham local of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, said teachers want the public to understand what they’re facing.

Ontario teachers have not made any move to strike, but remain at loggerheads with the Dalton McGuinty government, which first demanded and failed to get most boards to settle deals with their teachers by Sept. 1, their first day without a contract, then introduced Bill 115, which imposes a freeze on wages, cuts sick days and bans strikes and lockouts for two years. Many members from other unions expressed their support for teachers and their right to collective bargaining at the parade Monday. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Monday August 20, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Monday August 20, 2012

It’s McGuinty versus Ontario teachers 

Through nine long years and three hard-fought general elections, Ontario’s teachers have fought doggedly alongside the Liberal government of Premier Dalton McGuinty, knocking on doors, pounding in signs and writing cheques that helped fund seven-digit ad campaigns.

But public displays of affection between McGuinty and the province’s two largest teacher unions, representing more than 93,000 members, have vanished. Unions say co-operation has been replaced by a deep sense of betrayal.

“Since 2003 we had a great relationship with this government, there is no doubt about that,” Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario president Sam Hammond says.

“We supported them in each of the last three elections and did that openly because this government did make substantial changes and sound investments in public education. We supported those – smaller class sizes, full day kindergarten, etc.

“As of Oct. 7 (2011), we’re dealing with a government, a premier, a minister of education, I don’t understand anymore. Quite frankly. Since Oct. 7, there has been no relationship with this government.”

Not surprisingly, it’s money troubles that are threatening to split apart this durable political marriage since last fall’s election delivered a Liberal minority – McGuinty is dealing with a $15-billion deficit that can’t be reduced without some pain for the more than 1 million workers in the province’s broader public sector, whose salaries make up a big chunk of that shortfall.

To that end, Education Minister Laurel Broten tried to convince teachers to accept both a two-year wage freeze and a freeze on salary grid movement – the automatic wage bumps teachers get as they accumulate years of service. (Source: Sudbury Star)