By Doug Draper
Here is one teachers union in Ontario that deserves top grades for its willingness to show some restraint and responsibility to the rest of the province’s taxpayers during tough economic times.
Ontario Education Minister Laurel Broten reaches wage freeze agreement with Catholic teachers union
This July 5, the union representing some 43,000 Catholic elementary school teachers across Ontario, agreed to accept the provincial government’s call for a two-year wage freeze for teachers and some significant concessions with respect to teachers’ benefits.
“This is a historic and transformational agreement that has been reached between government and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association,” the Ontario Liberal government’s education minister Laurel Broten told the CBC in a statement this July 5. “It talks the issues that we wet out to tackle when we began these provincial discussions.”
It also assists the government and provincial taxpayers as a whole in tackling a $16 billion deficit that is already taking a toll on the funding of essential services and could have even more catastrophic consequences for everyone who lives in Ontario if that debt hole continues to get much deeper.
Broten announced a few months ago that the government would ask all teachers’s unions in the province to accept a two-year wage freeze. She also asked the unions to consider giving up such benefits as banking up sick days which, if not used, would still have to be paid back to teachers following their retirement. In some cases, the banked days could mean an after-retirement payout to teachers totalling tens-of-thousands of dollars.
On that score, union representatives agreed to no longer bank sick days for post-retirement payouts, and to a reduce the number of sick days they can bank from 20 to 10 a year. The union’s members are expected to vote on this tentative agreement in the days ahead. Meanwhile, three other unions, representing elementary and secondary school teachers in the province are scheduling a media conference this July 6 to respond to the above news.
So far, the other unions have responded with a flat no to any talks with the province over a wage freeze. It’s the first teachers’ group to break ranks with other unions, who have refused to negotiate after they were told their wages would be frozen.
“Many people thought that this day would never come, that we would never agree, that we were too far apart,” added Broten in her statement. “But this agreement demonstrates the value of partnership.”
One of those people may be the province’s Conservative Party leader Tim Hudak who, as recently as two weeks ago, at a town hall meeting in Niagara Falls, said efforts by the Liberal government to ask for voluntary wage freezes from public sector unions have been a failure. He went on to say that any government he led would impose immediate, across-the-board wage and benefit freezes for teachers, police and other public sector unions.
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Niagara At Large 
Isn’t that the same union that Dalton McGuinty’s wife belongs to?
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While I commend the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association for agreeing to a wage freeze and to no longer banking sick days for post-retirement as their way of taking the hit most taxpayers will be expected to take this year or in the coming years, this was hardly what any rational person would call ‘negotiating.’ When the employers lays out their final offer at the start and follows it up by stating that if the unions don’t accept the agreement, they’ll be legislated to accept the offer, that’s not ‘negotiating’ or ‘reaching an agreement.’ That’s having a gun held to your head.
When Bob Rae introduced the Social Contract after his government was unable to achieve voluntary agreements with public sector unions in 1993, he at least hadn’t held legislation to their heads from the beginning; he used it as a last option. Regardless, public and private sector unions ran him out of town. It’ll be interesting to see whether those same unions will run Premier Dalton McGuinty out of town. I say interesting because some of those unions never supported the NDP in the first place; they’ve long supported the Liberals. Let’s see if they’re consistent in their treatment of premiers. Guess we’ll find out in the next election.
On a separate topic, I read with interest where Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said if elected he “would impost immediate, across-the-board wage and benefit freezes for teachers, police and other public sector unions.” Considering the province only pays the salary of one police force in Ontario–the OPP–with the vast majority being employed by local municipalities, I’m really curious as to how he would or can do this. As the province does not employ those local police officers in this province and all have separate employers, it would be out of his jurisdiction to impose a wage freeze on them. It would be equivalent to the federal government imposing a wage freeze on inspection agents, even those employed by the provincial governments; it wouldn’t hold up to a legal challenge because the federal government doesn’t pay those salaries. But, admittedly I’m letting logic get in the way of a good campaign slogan and as we all know logic shouldn’t interfere with a good campaign slogan..:)
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You are being really naive – even if the Catholic Teachers Union agreed to a 50% wage cut, our taxes would not go down – the provincial government, just like all levels of government has all their “special interests” to take care of!
A brief brief response from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – Gee Sheridan, I am sorry. Perhaps we should simply go on with the status quo and rubber stamp three-per-cent wage and benefit advances for certain public interest unions for teachers, police and firefighters each year. That probably won’t cut the deficit or keep our taxes down either, but what the heck. Why bother trying to control costs for the rest of us who are out here in a real world where these days, being told the outfit you work for can’t afford to give raises this year or must downwage or downsize, and others are out of work completely or trying to get by on fixed incomes. I’d like to know what your definition of a “special interest” is. some people feel that teacher unions are a special interest. And on that note, if you have been following Niagara At Large for the past two years, you should know that this publisher and this site has never shrunk away from slamming special interests, whether that be hospital board administrators, e-health, the oil lobby that controls our current federal government, etc. ….. But then, sorry for being so naive. I’ll try to wake up and pay better attention to what is going on …. Doug Draper, NAL
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