On Monday, August 14 the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) announced that Karen Brown had been re-elected as president.
Brown has served as president of the ETFO since 2021 when she became the first Black president to be elected to a provincial teacher affiliate union in Canada.
After being re-elected, Brown immediately took aim at Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservative government.
“Since taking office, the Ford government has continued to push an austerity agenda, with extensive cuts to public services. As president, it is my commitment to members that ETFO will not falter in challenging their ongoing attacks on public education,” said Brown. “Education is the great equalizer: I will not tire of defending this democratic right, and together, we will not back down.”
Strike votes to begin in September
That same day, the ETFO announced its intention to begin holding in-person strike votes in September and October.
At issue for the ETFO and its 83,000 members are smaller class sizes, transparent hiring practices, workload and working conditions, violence in the classroom and more.
LISTEN HERE: Educators being violently attacked
The ETFO states that the government has not meaningfully negotiated on any of these issues at the bargaining table.
Brown has stated:
“ETFO members have been without an agreement for almost a year. They have been patient, but their patience has run out. We need the Ford government to take bargaining seriously and to act in good faith, as required by law … ETFO’s goal is to reach fair and reasonable agreements without having to take job action. We need the government’s full attention on bargaining so we can address pressing concerns in public education.”
Ontario education minister Stephen Lecce released a statement claiming that the union had rejected offers of private mediation and reiterated his commitment to keeping kids in school.
“Threatening another strike and creating anxiety for parents and students just weeks before the start of the school year is unnecessary and unfair,” Lecce’s statement reads.
Lecce did not address in his statement the concerns of the union around safety in those classrooms, classroom sizes, or any of the union’s other concerns.
Striking down of Bill 124, a game changer
When Doug Ford was first elected in 2018 one of his first acts was to pass Bill 124, a measure that restricts annual pay increases for Ontario public servants to just one per cent per year. This includes not only wage increases but increases in any form of compensation including paid time off.
In November of 2022, Ontario Justice Markus Koehnen ruled that Bill 124 violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The striking down of Bill 124 has led to retroactive pay increases for a range of public sector workers.
“Given the content and timing of the legislation in 2019—in the midst of negotiations for the renewal of collective agreements in the education sector—Bill 124 was a direct attack on teachers and education workers,” Brown said last November.
The looming ETFO strike comes nearly one year after a strike by educational support workers of the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU).
At that time, the Ford government eventually attempted to force OSBCU members back to work by passing Bill 28, which forced a contract on the union and made further striking illegal. Ford protected that bill from the courts through the use of the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution, which allows governments to pass laws even though they might violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
READ MORE: CUPE Ontario President says general strike ‘absolutely a possibility’
The threat of a general strike from OSBCU’s parent union the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario led to Ford backing down and repealing Bill 28 and returning to the negotiating table.
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