OSSTF's 2nd day of strikes will close many public high schools on Wednesday

Members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) announced they will go ahead with a second one-day school strike Wednesday since no deal has been reached between the union and the government. 

High schools run by nine school boards across the province will be closed on Wednesday now that the strike is going ahead, including at high schools in the Toronto District School Board.

OSSTF president Harvey Bischof says the union, which represents most of the province's public high school teachers, and the provincial government have not met this week to continue contract negotiations, making the job action unavoidable. 

In a news conference Tuesday, Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce urged the union to call off the strike and sit down with a third-party mediator in a bid to reach an agreement.

"We'd been reasonable, the union has not moved once since this process began, and they now need to do the same," Lecce said at the conference Tuesday. 

He says it's up OSSTF to make the next move. 

"This isn't a a game, these are our kids, they should be in class tomorrow." 

Lecce also announced a tentative labour deal with the Educational Workers' Alliance of Ontario (EWAO), which represents a number of smaller unions. 

EWAO represents teachers from the following groups:

• Educational Assistants Association.
• Dufferin-Peel Education Resource Worker's Association.
• Halton District Educational Assistants Association.
• Association of Professional Student Services Personnel.
• Unite Here — Local 272, Service Employees' International Union — Local 2.
• Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens.

"As shown with EWAO, and CUPE in October, our government has remained a constructive force at the table working hard to ensure parents have the predictability they deserve," Lecce said. 

Meanwhile, the province remains locked in labour talks with two other major teachers' unions.

Elementary teachers are ramping up their work-to-rule campaign, saying the teachers they represent will no longer plan any new field trips or distribute letters or memos from schools and boards.

Ontario English Catholic teachers are also moving closer to a potential strike.

OSSTF increase would cost $240M over 3 years: province

With education bargaining at a standstill, Lecce has released cost figures for OSSTF's contract proposals. 

The government laid out the costs in a chart provided to reporters during a technical briefing this afternoon, and projected the cost if all education unions get the same deal as OSSTF. 

Across the public high school system province-wide, the government estimates the increase in compensation and benefits for teachers and education workers would cost an estimated $1.52 billion by the end of 2022. 

Of that $1.52 billion increase, Lecce says OSSTF teachers and education workers alone would cost $240 million. 

Rolling back all class size increases and cancelling all plans for online courses would cost another $275 million by the third year, Lecce added. 

In total by the end of 2022, the province estimates the proposed requirements would cost a total of $2.98 billion, which includes the estimated cost if the proposal is applied to all education unions. 

That total, however, doesn't include the addition of professional development (PD) days or the proposal to improve the sick-leave plan for teachers and education workers. 

"I just think it is important for those data points to be publicized, I actually choose not to comment on the merits of them," Lecce said. 

'Ford knows exactly how to keep kids in school'

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath isn't convinced by the numbers projected by Ontario Premier Doug Ford's government. They're meant to "confuse and worry people," she said. 

"Today what we're seeing from Mr. Lecce is an obvious desperate attempt to make this about anything but Mr. Ford's class size hikes, teacher layoffs and cuts to our children's education," Horwath said. 

"Mr. Ford knows exactly how to keep kids in school tomorrow and I'm calling on him to do just that." 

Horwath says she's urging the premier to cancel education budget cuts, keep class sizes at an average of 22 students and get rid of the plan to have students take courses online — changes she calls "pretty basic."