News

SEND YOUR NEWSWORTHY VIDEOS TO VIDEOS@NEWSTALK1010.COM

VIDEO: Unions Vow Action After Teachers Bill Passes

Posted By: Katie Franzios · 9/11/2012 3:11:00 PM

It cannot be business as usual from here on in.

That's according to Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) president Sam Hammond who says he will urge his members to pull back from volunteering at schools. He says that means extracurricular activities may be affected but notes it will be up to the individual teachers to decide if they want to pull out.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) are just planning to do this Wednesday.

The EFTO will also be holding what they call McGuinty Mondays, where teachers will be urged not to go to any board or Ministry meetings on the first day of the week.

OSSTF president Ken Coran says they don't think anything in the classroom will change in the foreseeable future but notes strike votes will be taking place.

CUPE Ontario head Fred Hahn says they will be contacting their lawyers to file legal paperwork as soon as possible. The unions have called this move by the province unconstitutional and vowed to fight this all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Leave a comment:

showing all comments · Subscribe to comments
  1. Earl posted on 09/11/2012 09:53 PM
    Sue those morons in the legislature back to the stone age! I am very much anti-union but pro-keep-your-word. Now that Hudak has done this he is not to be trusted,. not that he would ever have been anyway. Par for the course for McGuinty to screw someone over, it always ends up being the public.

    Rather than negotiate in good faith honouring existing agreements this government acts like idiots. And the faithful voters will eat it up and vote 'em back in again, just like they keep supporting the Leafs! This province has screwed itself and seems to take some sick pleasure in doing so.

    What we need is legislation that makes "voting the party line" illegal with permanent expulsion for doing so. Our form of democracy is dead once you drop the ballot because of these internal party dictatorships.

    And we do need right to work legislation of some form, it is unfair and dare I argue unconstitutional to in any way have existence of unions affect options on a private employment agreement between individuals and employers: I should be able to take any so-called union job with a completely separate, different set of terms and conditions with an employer that has union workers and pay not one red cent to a union. The employer should have the right to hire whomsoever they choose under any conditions compliant with labour laws, within or outside of unions.

    And teachers in unions? Sorry to say, but if you are calling yourselves professionals, calling it a profession, that is great. But the labour laws in Ontario that apply to professionals or like workers on fixed salary should apply to you like they do to others, such as engineers, accountants etc., not unionised. What are you afraid of?

    I am happy to be a professional outside any kind of union because those of us who work harder, are more dedicated, who excel at what we do, get compensated considerably better than those who do not. It's called being paid for what you do, what you produce. We are not all equal in what we do and should be able to individually negotiate our compensation accordingly.
  2. Richard Collins posted on 09/12/2012 07:35 AM
    This legislation is the best thing that's happened in our school system in years. People seem to be forgetting what "democracy" means; basically, the majority speaks up, and the government behaves accordingly. In this case, the majority (taxpayers) spoke up and said they were tired of giving in to demands from the minority (union members).

    Just because YOU don't get what YOU want does not mean democracy has failed. Grow up and join us in the real world.
showing all comments

Videos

Trending