Teachers in Thunder Bay from a variety of unions are taking strike action. They rallied at a variety of locations throughout the city on Friday including mini Queen’s Park on James Street.
Carlo Cappello is the local President of Thunder Bay’s Secondary School Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association. He says having all four teacher unions rallying at the government service building shows they are unified.
“We are here today because all four of us have experienced at the table cuts from Doug Ford, and all four of us can’t make progress on removing those cuts. We are hoping that Doug will finally see that we are absolutely serious,” Cappello says.
Rich Seeley is the president of the Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation and says they haven’t been at the bargaining table in over two months.
“We are becoming frustrated, not discouraged but frustrated. We would like to get some movement at the table and if the government just took the cuts off the table we could get there. Probably would take us just a couple of days if the cuts were taken off the table but the government won’t budge,” Seeley says.
OECTA, Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation of Ontario, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario and members of the AEFO are rallying at mini Queen’s Park.
“Our first full day of withdrawal was January 21st, and we’ve been negotiating since the end of our collective agreement at the end of August 2019. We’ve met with the government probably no less than 45 to 50 times. It’s been a long time since we started this process and we continue to be out here,” Capello notes.
When asked what they think of claims by Education Minister Stephen Lecce that teachers on strike are hurting students’ futures the union officials say they are doing it for the kids.
“We are doing this so the kids will have a choice in their education going forward. So they can have caring adults supporting them in the classrooms, whether they need extra help, whether they have special needs, we are ensuring that those services will be in place. If we can get our message through to the public so the public can pressure the provincial government to maintain our world-class education system,” Seeley says.
The teachers union officials don’t seem concerned the public support for their cause will dry up the longer the strike action continues.
“There’s always that possibility but we are very buoyed by the fact that our public support seems to be increasing as parents learn more about the issues, they are seeing more and more that privatizing the public system is not the way to go,” Seeley adds.
While teachers feel parents are on their side, the Education Minister feels differently.
In a statement, Lecce says parents are losing patience with the union-caused disruption in their lives, the inconsistency in their children’s education, and the financial impact of scrambling for alternate care.
“Your child should be in class; they should not be the casualty of union-led escalation. The focus of union leaders ought to be on negotiating a deal that keeps students in the class. Our government will remain squarely focused on providing stability to students who face escalation by teacher unions far too often throughout their educational journey. We have demonstrated this focus on students during the negotiation process, by advancing educational priorities that matter: merit-based hiring, enhanced investments in student priorities and special education over union demands for more generous wages and benefits and committed – in writing – to protecting all-day kindergarten,” Lecce says.
