OSSTF temporarily suspends work action for Wednesday

A planned job action by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) scheduled for Wednesday has been suspended until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, union officials confirmed with CityNews Tuesday evening.

Teachers in eight school boards across the province – including the Toronto and Halton boards – were planning to begin job action starting Wednesday, to protest the government’s Bill 115 which legislated a two-year contract on teachers, including a wage freeze, fewer sick days and a ban on strikes and lockouts.

The job action would have included not communicating with parents after hours, including responding to emails and parent-teacher interviews; not filling in for absent teachers and not providing progress reports.

And there were fears that some midterm report cards would be affected.

Teachers in Toronto normally submit students’ marks into a central database. As part of the job action, they threatened to instead submit the marks to their school’s administration team, which would slow the process down to a crawl.

Grade 12 students were particularly concerned, because universities will be looking at those marks.

But the suspension announced Tuesday has largely allayed those fears and the union is hoping it will give them more time to negotiate with the province.

Talks are planned for Wednesday, and Education Minister Laurel Broten said the decision not to begin job action gave her renewed optimism that a deal can be struck.

“We are pleased that OSSTF has decided to delay strike action and instead focus on finding solutions by working with the government and school boards,” she said.

“We need all of our partners in education to work with us to find solutions that put the success of our students first. We’re looking forward to further discussions in the days ahead.”

“Exploratory” talks resumed between the union representing high schools and the Ontario government on Tuesday afternoon, the OSSTF said.

OSSTF president Ken Coran seemed hopeful an amicable conclusion could be reached.

“There seems to be willingness to reignite the talks that stalled way back in the spring,” Coran told CityNews.

Coran said he had a meeting with Broten about two weeks ago, and the OSSTF presented some proposals, including financial numbers.

“The government is reviewing those numbers. They have also been in contact with local school board directors,” he said.

According to the OSSTF website, teachers and occasional teachers in a legal strike position will not:

  • attend staff meetings.
  • organize/attend department meetings.
  • attend department head meetings (department heads).
  • attend central (board) committee meetings/councils.
  • conduct co-op visits outside of regular school day hours.
  • attend Open House/Information Sessions outside of regular school day.
  • answer parental emails outside of the regular school day.
  • participate in parent interviews outside of the regular school day.
  • provide progress reports (written reports beyond those provided at mid-term and end of term).

Click here for a full list of possible job actions.

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