ETFO's Bargaining Goals: Overcoming a Century of Discrimination (From the President)

On August 31, less than 200 days from now, every ETFO teacher and occasional teacher collective agreement will expire. It is only at the bargaining table that ETFO  can bring about  changes that positively affect every member at once.

During the last round of bargaining we entered into a historic and precedent-setting framework agreement. It  ensured that over the term of the agreement  200  minutes  of  preparation  time would be phased in and time limits would be set on teachers’ supervision duties.

We face an even greater challenge this time, the greatest challenge ETFO has ever committed itself to. Our goal is nothing less than eliminating the $711 gap in per-pupil funding that exists between the elementary and  secondary panels, and  by  so  doing  bring  about  equal  working conditions for the elementary panel. To be successful, we will have to overcome more than a century of  discrimination that  has  held  back both elementary teachers and their students.

If the accountability agenda demands that elementary teachers deliver the same quality of education as is expected at the secondary level then we must have equal resources. If  teachers are held to be accountable, government and school boards must also be. We must demand equal working conditions, and we expect employers to answer the question “Why not?”

Within our overall goal of reducing the funding gap we have specific objectives for this round of bargaining.  They are the result of consultation with locals and members and have been endorsed by the Executive and by the Representative Council.

The teacher and ESP/PSP goals are to negotiate:

• Real salary increases
• Compressed grids with improved beginning salaries
• A maximum class size of 20 in grades JK–3
• A maximum class size of 22 in grades 4–8
• Student assessment and reporting time
• Improved preparation time
• Language that guarantees and improves working conditions
• Language that defends and improves benefits
• A significant reduction in supervision time per five-day cycle
• A pregnancy/parental top-up of 100 per- cent for 52 weeks
• Language that ensures that vice-principals and principals have no teaching time
• An experience credit that includes all occa- sional teacher work.

In the last round of bargaining, we also achieved precedent-setting results for occasional teachers. We negotiated significant increases in salaries and ensured that occasional teachers would get the timetable of the teacher they are replacing.

Our goals for new collective agreements for occasional teachers are to negotiate:

• Paid professional development
• An experience credit that includes casual days and long-term assignments
• Language to provide priority hiring for permanent positions
• Language to ensure that all long-term occasional teaching positions are hired from the occasional teacher list
• Language to ensure that each teacher absence is covered by an occasional teacher
• Benefit improvements
• Capped lists
• Real salary increases.

Any success we have ever had at the bargaining table has ultimately been the result of the commitment and  solidarity  of members being prepared to take action to support their aspirations. No one should underestimate the  impact that having 30 overwhelmingly successful strike votes in 30 days had in the last round of bargaining.

ETFO is committing its full resources to Close the  Gap.  We  have  been  building our  defence fund. We have set the stage for bargaining by our political action and public relations campaigns. The historic discrimination the elementary panel has endured can be ended. But success in this round of bargaining will happen only if all ETFO members are prepared to stand together as they did in the spring of 2005.