Dear Parents and Guardians,
The Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board does not want a labour disruption. We want our students in school learning with our teachers, whom we consider to be amongst the very best in the province.
Unfortunately it now appears that a labour disruption in the form of rotating strikes is inevitable as early as this Tuesday.
The Board believes that the best schools are those where the teachers and staff are able to respond to the unique needs of the school community. We take great care in assigning teachers to schools, and this is one of the reasons why we consistently rank among the top school boards in the province.
The key outstanding issue in these contract negotiations is the Board’s ability to place existing teachers in vacant positions who have all of the reasonable experiences and relevant criteria to help our students learn. We have thoroughly discussed and agreed with the union’s bargaining committee in a number of areas including:
• Clarity over availability of jobs and when they would be posted,
• that our principals would make recommendations about whom they wanted to fill the vacancies in their schools and that the principals would make their decisions according to stated criteria; • that the criteria the principals considered would include the teachers’ years of teaching experience;
• that the principals would make their recommendations to an entirely new committee of our most senior managers, our superintendents, and the committee would review the principals’ decisions according to the same criteria that the principals used; and
• that the senior committee would make the decision about who would be selected based on the recommendations and based on the needs of all the schools, not just the school where the vacancy existed. We are one of the very best school boards in the province and our success is built on our commitment that each of our elementary schools deserves to be treated the same.
Despite all of these agreements, we have not been able to reach a settlement. The union is striking on Tuesday because the union insists that the Board is not entitled to consider a teacher’s experience that is reasonably related to the job when it selects who should teach your children. The union also insists that the Board may not rely on any criterion that is reasonably related to the job unless the union gives its permission, even when the union agrees that the criterion is reasonably related to the job.
We have had questions from some parents asking why the Board does not agree with the suggestion of the union’s bargaining committee that both parties head to binding arbitration to resolve outstanding issues. Binding arbitration is a process where a third party, the arbitrator, hears what is outstanding and makes a decision to resolve the issue. We are committed to preserve the Board’s right to rely on relevant criteria and experience and we do not agree to let an arbitrator substitute his or her judgement about the importance of these criteria to the children in our system. Why would the Board gamble our children’s future education?
We believe that if we agree to any part of the remaining union proposals about job placement language, that we will have a collective agreement that is far from being in the best interests of the students.
So where does this leave us?
Unfortunately the union has given notice that on Tuesday, February 7 they will commence rotating strikes. They have given notice that they will focus on the senior elementary schools in the Board for their first strike.
• Bishop Gallagher
• Bishop E. Q. Jennings
• Pope John Paul II
This notice leaves the Board in a very difficult position. The safety of students is our top priority, one which would be difficult to ensure during rotating OECTA strikes. The Board has determined that in order to ensure the safety of our students, it may have no choice but to lock out its teachers following implementation by the union of a rotating strike. Instructions will be provided to parents in advance in the event of a lock-out.
The Board remains committed to reaching a negotiated collective agreement. We are hopeful we can do so with a minimum amount of disruption to our students.
We thank you for your patience during this time.
Bob Hupka,
Chairperson
Pino Tassone,
Director of Education
