Those who fail to report for duty will be terminated?
Dear Readers,
Below is an article, verbatim by Louise Brown and Kristin Rushowy, Education Reporters
for the Toronto Star about `Ontario school unrest: High school teachers’ union forbids after-school volunteering` that was published on Wednesday January 09, 2013. My response is below that followed by space for your comment, if you choose although I am finding my email box filling up.
Ontario high school students hoping to have their
extracurriculars restored protested last month against Bill 115 at
Queen's Park. In the latest development, the high school teachers' union
has instructed members they "WILL NOT" voluntarily involve themselves
in after-school programs.
photo by STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR
The Ontario Secondary School
Teachers’ Federation has instructed its 50,000 members — in capital
letters and a bold font — that they “WILL NOT” return to voluntary
extracurriculars, leaving some teachers frustrated at the bid to take
the decision out of their hands. The union posted the directive on its website late Monday, with wording that goes beyond merely
suggesting that teachers think twice before running after-school
programs again, now that the Ontario government has imposed unpopular
contracts on them using Bill 115.
The order comes despite pleas from
Premier Dalton McGuinty that teachers restore clubs, teams and trips now
that they no longer are in a legal strike position. The government has
pledged to repeal Bill 115 now that it has used it to impose two-year
contracts on teachers in public English-language schools. The deals
reduce benefits, freeze wages and end the cashing in of sick days upon
retirement.
“I’m very upset. Some of us have
been telling students this week that they’d start to see things return
slowly in the coming weeks — girls’ rugby, for example — and now they’re
telling us we can’t do it,” fumed one York Region teacher Tuesday after
receiving the edict in an email. He would not give his name for fear of
being disciplined by the union. The high school teacher said that
while about half of his colleagues do not plan to return to
extracurriculars because they are angry at the government, others, like
him, have decided “the battle’s over, we have contracts and let’s move
on.”
This is the kind of turmoil that some
public school officials fear could drive boycott-weary students into
the arms of other school systems. A spokesman for the Greater Essex
County board in the Windsor area told the Star that could be the reason
some teachers there have decided to resume coaching sports. “Since students have a clear choice
of schools in all our communities, without activities outside the
classrooms we will, no doubt, lose students. And the number of teachers
we have is based on the number of students we have. It’s a simple
formula,” said Scott Scantlebury.
The memo from the OSSTF states that,
“while we are resuming our imposed contractual obligations and all of
our duties in accordance with the Education Act, it has always been the
position of OSSTF that the performance of extra-curricular activities is
voluntary.” Yet the letter from president Ken Coran then cites a union
decision made last month that if the government imposes contracts,
“voluntary or extracurricular activities WILL NOT resume.”
Both the OSSTF and the Elementary
Teachers’ Federation of Ontario will meet Wednesday with their
executives to decide what to do next to protest the imposed contracts,
including a possible one-day political protest, which the government
says would be deemed an illegal strike if held on a school day.
The ETFO has used somewhat more nuanced wording to urge its 76,000 members not to run after-school programs, calling
such a boycott “both appropriate and necessary” but stopping short of
commanding members to do so.
Education lawyers say it’s unclear
without a test case whether a union has the right to dictate what
members do on their own time, but lawyer Eric Roher said he received
frantic calls Tuesday from school boards across the province after
learning teachers were being ordered to keep up their boycott of
extracurriculars.
“It’s not straightforward at all,”
said Roher, of Borden Ladner Gervais. He said the Mike Harris government
had designated extracurriculars part of a teacher’s duty, making any
collective boycott of extracurriculars a type of strike, but the Liberal
government removed that from the Education Act in 2009, leaving
extracurriculars in legal limbo.
However, in an article to be
published in his firm’s education law newsletter, Roher cites landmark
rulings by former Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Bora Laskin in
1975 and an arbitrator with the Durham Catholic District School Board in
1999 that if teachers have performed a key volunteer service for long
enough, it can be deemed a required duty.
Meanwhile, some Toronto parents say
they want the Toronto District School Board to help parents and
community volunteers prepare to run some after-school programs
themselves, as the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has done with a new system developed last fall for such “exceptional circumstances” as the current labor turmoil.
“We need to hope for the best but
plan for the worst if teachers aren’t going to be running programs; we
need to get the right information on how to expedite background checks
and permits and the insurance paperwork, and the TDSB could help
expedite this,” said Mark Richardson, father of two students at
Toronto’s Bowmore Road Public School.
The Ottawa board has hired seven
retired principals at a cost of $30,000 so far to screen potential
volunteers who have been referred by local school principals, said
associate director Walter Piovesan. They are then trained in safety and
proper procedures before they begin at a school. Some 150 people have
stepped forward so far, most of them parents.
However some TDSB trustees said they
worry some schools could muster many parent volunteers while other
schools could not, which would not be fair.
Kids at School
my response....
It looks like the days of staying silent and watching our good teachers being attacked by union buffoons is over, judging by comments from some teachers! When teacher unions; in their mind 'the ultimate dictators' refuse
to recognize the need for change and Ontario government education leaders sell out mindlessly, taxpayers believe that
essentially, they have no voice in education. That has proven to be not just undemocratic,
it’s dangerous.
more Kids at School
While it may be convenient to blame the McGuinty Liberal
government for gross negligence in pandering to the teacher unions...and their
members votes for the last 9 years, in all fairness, the teachers union brought this particular situation on themselves! Should the union react with a `wildcat`strike or as they say, a `political protest`, the government now has the authority, with Bill 115 to fine those teachers who walk out during school hours. When the teacher's have a contract in
place, walking off the job is called an illegal strike!
even more Kids at School
With elementary teachers, some early childhood educators and other school
staff threatening to walk off the job on Friday, has the time come to legislate 'Right to Work' legislation to protect those teachers who don't support union leadership? Shutting down public
schools around the province is sure to distance the teacher's union even further! Considering the bickering and threats going on inside the union and membership, could it be the right time for Education Minister Laurel Broten to say, "I must tell those who fail to report for
duty this morning they are in violation of the law, and if they do not
report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will
be terminated.", just as Ronald Reagan did in 1981?
Kids at School
more Kids at School
even more Kids at School
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