Education Minister Creates a Poisoned Environment for Negotiations

For Immediate Release – February 10, 2009

Elementary teachers are outraged that the Minister of Education has chosen to publicly discuss the details of her offer that she presented to elementary teachers earlier today.

“The Minister’s decision to air her offer in a public forum without giving ETFO appropriate time to deliberate has poisoned the environment for negotiations,” said Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) president David Clegg. “If her professed desire is to create peace and stability, this approach won’t achieve it.”

Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne convened a meeting at noon today between ETFO and the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA), during which she presented an offer to frame local contract negotiations.  She indicated that the deadline for acceptance of the offer by both ETFO and OBSPA was 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 12.

“Regardless of the outcome, this Minister’s process is offensive to elementary teachers. Elementary teachers have been asking that elementary students be treated with fairness and elementary teachers with respect.  The current offer and the way it is presented does neither,” said Clegg.

“Since provincial discussions began, Minister Wynne has consistently poisoned negotiations by setting arbitrary deadlines and publicly threatening to limit salary increases and withhold resources from students if teachers did not accept a provincial agreement.

“It seems hard to believe that the Minister does not realize that her proposal creates 1,500 fewer jobs than the ETFO proposal that also involves a 10.4 percent salary increase,” Clegg said.

The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario represents 73,000 elementary public school teachers and education workers across the province and is the largest teacher federation in Canada.