Education union accuses Ford authorities of ‘fear-mongering’

The union representing Ontario’s elementary lecturers is accusing the provincial authorities of “fear-mongering” as an early confrontation breaks out between the Ford authorities and coaching unions.

On Monday, Education Minister Stephen Lecce laid out the federal authorities’s expectations for the upcoming faculty yr, insisting that faculty college students have entry to widespread in-class lessons, along with extracurricular actions.

“We’re signaling our clear intent to have these corporations, these experiences restored, and to help kids, and everyone knows that educators care deeply about their kids, they might do the correct issue and make certain that these experiences are put once more for teens.”

Whereas the suggestions bought right here after two years of government-mandated faculty closures — largely ensuing from COVID-19 — Lecce appeared to direct his statements to Ontario’s coaching unions, which are to start out with ranges of contract negotiations with the province.

The minister’s suggestions, nonetheless, had been met with a sharp rebuke from the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), which accused Lecce of trying to “create a catastrophe the place none exists.”

“His targets seem like agitation and division,” ETFO president Karen Brown acknowledged in an announcement. “Minister Lecce is needlessly engaged in fear-mongering.”

Brown acknowledged the ETFO’s 83,000 members — which contains public faculty elementary lecturers — “is perhaps in schools” after they reopen in September no matter union contracts expiring on Aug. 31.

Laura Walton, who represents the Ontario Faculty Board Council of Unions, instructed Worldwide Info this week it’s “premature” for the minister to spice up any issues about faculty closures on account of the contract talks are of their infancy.

In step with the province’s private authorized pointers governing collective bargaining, to make sure that a strike to occur, unions and the employer have to satisfy certain thresholds.

As quickly because the contract expires and negotiations break down, either side might be required to satisfy with a Ministry of Labor conciliation officer and acquire a “no-board” report sooner than a union is legally allowed to strike 17 days later.

Unions are moreover legally required to hold a strike vote and would possibly solely stage a walkout if a majority of members vote in favor of job movement.

The province’s coaching unions degree out that none of these requirements have been met, which suggests there’s little to no risk of school disruptions in September.

“You can’t even identify for a strike vote higher than 30 days sooner than the expiration of a collective bargaining settlement and we might not identify for a strike vote sooner than of us are once more at work,” Walton acknowledged.

“We is perhaps once more.”