Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Threats to dock pay finally motivate teacher deal


TORONTO - Some 75 days after Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) boss Sam Hammond stood before a militant cabal of teachers assembled at a downtown hotel — vowing to fight the government to the bitter end for a “fair collective agreement” — a tentative deal has finally been reached.

Through militant rhetoric, a withdrawal of extracurricular activities, extra help and Terry Fox charity run events — not to mention persistent whining on social media by elementary teachers who seemed to have far too much time to tweet — I honestly do not know why they held out for so long.

ETFO liked to use union-speak like “strips to their collective agreements” while saying very little about what was causing the 78,000 members to disrupt the school experience for students caught for the past two months like pawns in the little game between the government and the teachers’ union.

Hammond and his teacher hangers-on insisted it was not about the money — as their fellow teachers’ unions settled for a 2.5% pay hike over two years, an extra PA day and a nice little $1-million payout for bargaining well done. ETFO even had the moxy to try to delude the public that improvements to sick leave and other health benefits, or to class sizes, would come without a cost to taxpayers, or not exact a price from the classroom.  (more...)


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