proposed goals, which are provided to the Provincial Executive who then submit them to the Representative Council for review and approval. The Representative Council ap- proved ETFO’s 2019 central bargaining goals last February (available at etfocb.ca). Locals may also have their own processes


by which they gather input from members to develop local bargaining goals. This might include surveys, general member and com- mittee meetings, focus groups and so on.


thorough overview in his article, “The Evolu- tion of Teacher Bargaining in Ontario,” in the publication Dynamic Negotiations; Teacher Labour Relations in Canadian Elementary and Secondary Education (2012). A pivotal moment was in the fall of 2012


with the passing of Bill 115, legislation that stripped education unions of their right to bargain collectively by imposing, among other things, wage and retirement gratuity freeze provisions, limitations on the ability to strike and a restructured sick leave plan. ETFO and other education unions launched a Charter challenge, which was upheld by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2016. In the challenge, the case was made that the provincial government had violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it enacted Bill 115. More information on the Court’s decision can be found at etfo.ca. Under the Ford government’s austerity


agenda, increases to class size and a bill that proposes to cap increases to public sector compensation at one percent again limit the bargaining power of unions to fully and collectively negotiate terms and conditions of employment. No matter the challenges put forth by the


Ford government, it remains ETFO’s priority to protect the collective bargaining rights of all its members.


CENTRAL AND LOCAL BARGAINING: A TWO-TIER SYSTEM


On June 3, 2019, ETFO filed notice to the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) to begin bargaining. Notice to bar- gain is usually given within a 90-day window prior to the expiry of a collective agreement. However, in early April 2019, the Ford gov- ernment introduced a new regulation that ex- tended the notice to bargain period a month ahead of the 90-day window. All ETFO col-


20 ETFO VOICE | FALL 2019


lective agreements expired August 31, 2019. ETFO is now in the bargaining period. The two-tier system we have in place


now was established under the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act (SBCBA), the piece of legislation that defines the structure of bargaining for the public edu- cation sector in the province. As an ETFO member, you may be aware


that your collective agreement has two sec- tions – a central agreement and a local agree- ment. The terms under the central agree- ment are negotiated at a central bargaining table and apply to all ETFO members. The local agreement is bargained between your ETFO local and the school board. The SBCBA is a relatively new piece of leg-


islation, passed in 2014. ETFO, as well as the other public sector education unions, have only been through one full round of bargain- ing under this Act and that was for the 2014- 17 central and local collective agreements. In the fall of 2016, leading up to the expiry of that agreement, the Liberal government pro- posed an extension of collective agreements in place of full bargaining. Some provisions were negotiated at the central tier, while local agreements remained unchanged.


EIGHT FACTS ABOUT ETFO COLLECTIVE BARGAINING


1. ETFO members participate in setting the bargaining goals. In November 2018, ETFO provincial asked members for input on priorities for this round of negotiations via an online survey, telephone survey and focus groups. The re- sults were collected and analyzed by ETFO staff, then presented to the ETFO provincial Collective Bargaining Committee. This com- mittee is made up of ETFO members from all groups – teacher, occasional teacher, DECE, ESP and PSP. Its role is to develop a set of


2. Central list items are related to, but not the same as, bargaining goals. Once ETFO’s bargaining goals are approved by Representative Council, a subsequent meeting is held for local presidents and chief negotiators to approve the proposed central list items. The central list items take into ac- count the goals, but are not the same. The goals are the intended destination (e.g., ad- ditional special education supports, smaller class sizes, etc.), while the central list includes the items that the parties want to negotiate (e.g., class size), but not the objective.


3. Central list items are negotiated in each round of bargaining. Once notice is given to bargain by either the union or employer bargaining agent, the parties must meet within 15 days of that notice, unless a later date is agreed upon. Initially, the parties may negotiate ground rules for bargaining, followed by the central list items. OPSBA, or the Council of Trust- ees’ Association (CTA), and the government will come to the table with their own pro- posed list of central items. The scope of cen- tral bargaining must be determined before moving on to negotiating any changes to the collective agreement.


4. ETFO bargains for its members at two central bargaining tables. There are two central tables for ETFO – the Teacher/Occasional Teacher Central Table and the Education Worker Central Table (for DECE, ESP and PSP members). ETFO nego- tiates with OPSBA for teacher and occasional teacher members and with CTA for DECE, ESP, PSP and other education worker mem- bers. CTA is the representative employer agency for all publicly funded school boards (i.e., public, Catholic, French-language) at the ETFO Education Worker Central Table.


5. ETFO is represented by a negotiations team at the central table. Who is at the central bargaining table? The group of people who sit at the table, across from school board and government


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