Ontario’s Teachers Unions Strike Secret Deal With Wynne Government To Pocket More Than $2 Million Of Our Tax Money.

A Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

Here are a couple of front-page stories in one of Canada’s national newspapers that should have most people in Ontario saying enough is enough with teachers unions and their over-the-top sense of entitlement to our tax dollars.

Ontario’s Education Minister Liz Sanders says it is just about compensating the teachers unions for their negotiating costs

These stories should also cause people like me to be more cautious about giving Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and her Liberal government the benefit of the doubt when so many others out there say they are the same secretive, arrogant, morally bankrupt bunch that they were when Dalton McGuinty was their leader and, for the better party of 10 years, the province’s premier.

If your head is still spinning from the federal election and you are just catching up to what else is going on, let me give you the gist of the two Globe and Mail stories (I’ll provide links to them below) laying out the information uncovered by reporters for the newspapers.

The first story, published this past October 21^st under a headline reading: ‘Ontario paid $1-million to teachers’ union’ and includes a sub-heading that reads: ‘Government also financed pay hikes by diverting money from a fund for programs to help struggling students graduate’, and it begins as follows:

“Ontario’s Liberal government paid $1 million directly to the province’s high school teachers union as part of a deal to defuse one of its most explosive labour disputes, a document obtained by The Globe and Mail reveals.”

“In addition,” the story continues, “the government financed raises for teachers by diverting money from a fund for special programs that help struggling students graduate. … These details are included in the confidential, 42-page document that spells out the terms of a three-year labour agreement the province and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation reached in August. The government and the union have kept the document secret, but The Globe and Mail obtained a copy.”

The second story (and I hope you are still with me because next to health care, education makes up a major part of Ontario’s budget) was published at the top of The Globe’s front page this October 22^nd and is headlined: ‘Multiple payouts given to teacher unions’ with a sub-heading that reads: ‘Practice calls into question Ontario negotiating system as Education Minister confirms offering compensation for bargaining costs’.

The first couple of graphs of the story underneath the headline reads: ‘The Ontario government secretly paid $1-million to the Catholic teachers’ union and $500,000 to the French teachers’ union to buy labour peace. This means three unions have now received payments totalling $2.5 million from the government in this year’s round of bargaining.”

All this (and who knows how much more may be contained in other files that may be hidden) happening on the watch of Premier Kathleen Wynne, who promised Ontarians so emphatically that she would run an “open government” when she was sworn in to the province’s top job a year and a half ago.

After The Globe posted the first story, a reader from St. Catharines wrote the newspaper a letter to the editor that reads in part: “These distasteful decisions (to pay out the money_ further tarnish the Ontario Liberals’ and offer cause to regret my past support. … The federal Liberals would be well-advised to maintain a health distance from their Ontario counterparts if they are serious about maintaining the renewed trust of once-lost supporters.”

Another letter writer from Edmonton, Alberta offered the following: “I’m having trouble wrapping my head around where the line on the chalkboard is that separates an incentive from a bribe. I’m guessing Ontario’s Liberals won’t be teaching that course.

Well as of yesterday, and only after The Globe made documents outlining the payoff to the unions public, Wynne’s Education Minister Liz Sandals took a stab at trying to teach us. She said the money was “compensation” to the teacher union for costs they incurred during a new bargaining system the government used that, as it turned out, made negotiations drag on longer than expected.

“Compensation” seems like too polite a word for what we are looking at here, thanks to the investigative work of Globe reporters Adrian Morrow and Selena Ross.

Just a word or two on the teachers unions for now because we are running long here. And before I get comments accusing me of being anion basher (and I will), I’ve had a record of being a supporter of unions all of my adult life, including in the pages of newspapers I have worked for over the years, and I was even out on strike, picketing one of them once.

But not all unions are the same and there is something about the way teachers unions behave – and I am far from the only one who has observed this – that places them far apart from many other unions, particularly unions that represent steel worker, auto workers, paper workers and many other people working in the trades for private sector companies.

In brief, what I am referring to is a sense of entitlement that has them expecting things (like banking up years of sick day compensation they didn’t use but add to their payout when they retire, just as an example) that few others in the working world can imagine. It is a sense of entitlement that remains in play even during times like the Great Recession our province and the country suffered through eight years ago, when other union and non-union workers were making concessions they would accept to keep their jobs, if they did not lose their jobs all together.

And if they don’t get what they are convinced they are entitled to, they work to rule or threaten to go on strike and, of course, the strike dates are always set at a time when the students and their parents are getting ready to start the school year or before the school year is over.

When a strike or talk of one is in the wind, the rhetoric from union leaders is almost always the same. ‘This is not about money,’ they insist. ‘It is about the students and the quality of their education, and the teachers would rather be in the classroom.’

We also hear during these periods about how hard teachers worker and about all of the work then are taking home, and for many teachers dedicated to their job, this is no doubt true.

But you know, there are a lot of people out there who are working hard – many of them at jobs that are far dirtier and far less fulfilling than teaching young people – and aren’t receiving anywhere near the same wages and benefits.

And as for the students and their parents, I have no doubt that the many good teachers out there care about them too. But during times of heated bargaining, when there is the threat of a strike in the wind, students and their parents become pawns in the bargaining game for both the government and the teachers unions.

Then we have all of this secret wheeling and dealing with our money going on. Over compensation for the teachers unions’ negotiate costs? Why weren’t those costs paid out of the teachers’ union dues? Why out of tax money that should be going into the classrooms, if it is really about the students.

To read the first Globe story, click on the following two links –http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario-paid-1-million-to-union-for-labour-peace-with-high-school-teachers/article26900173/ .

To read a CBC story on this click on – http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/sandals-education-osstf-payout-1.3282236 .

At press time, NAL could not get a link for the October 22^nd story. If someone else can get it and wishes to include it in a comment below, we will welcome that.

Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary for and from the greater bi-national Niagara region.

(NOW IT IS YOUR TURN. Niagara At Large encourages you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)