Board negotiates deal with area high school teachers

A deal has been made.

After months of difficult negotiations and the intervention of a provincial conciliator, the Trillium Lakelands District School Board and District 15 of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) have reached and ratified a three-year collective agreement that will guarantee labour peace until Aug. 31, 2024.

Craig Horsley, president of District 15 OSSTF, is pleased with the contract, calling it a housekeeping agreement that focused on local working conditions and featured no obvious losses for local secondary teachers.

“We were able to clear up a lot of little stuff,” Horsley said, “and there is now much clearer language and policies in place that guide how an occasional teacher can make the transition to fulltime work and part time staff will be offered sections based on seniority and qualifications. For supply teachers the system has been regionalized and involves a rotating list that the board hopes to automate soon.”

“Many small issues for the benefit of teachers are now present in this agreement,” Horsley continued.

When asked about issues like wages, class size funding and benefits that have so often dominated contract negotiations in the past, Horsley said those issues are no longer determined locally and involve direct negotiation with the Ministry of Education.

For the next three years teachers, like all provincial civil servants, will see a one per cent per year increase as mandated by Bill 124. The bill caps all public sector pay increases at that level and will likely remain in effect as long as the government of Premier Doug Ford is in power.

With the new destreamed Grade 9 math curriculum rolling out this September, the two sides agreed to set class sizes for this new course at 25.

Horsley envisions very little full-time permanent hiring for the new school year because enrollment right across TLDSB is either static or declining.

The ratified contract that impacts over 800 occasional and full-time staff at the secondary level was a difficult one to negotiate, Horsley said, because virtually all the meetings between OSSTF and the board had to be done virtually which slowed the process considerably.

Horsley praised the role played by the provincial conciliator who played a key part in pushing the contract over the finish line by helping the board, represented by retired superintendent Dianna Scates, and OSSTF to not let small disagreements stand in the way of a deal that was good for both parties.

(Trillium Lakelands District School Board was asked for and refused comment on any aspect of this collective agreement and its negotiation.)