Or you could be in Ontario where the government introduced a bill that gives them the power to impose contracts on education workers...yes glad to see we have
democracy.Yes unions do serve a purpose ...
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2012/12/11 ... ort-staff/Education minister ready to impose contract on teachers, support staff
OTTAWA — Education Minister Laurel Broten confirmed Monday she will impose a new contract on thousands of striking teachers and education workers if their unions don’t reach deals with school boards by the end of the year.
In her clearest language yet, the minister reiterated that the government’s preference would be for the two sides to reach agreements on their own.
But if that doesn’t happen, Broten told the Citizen she will use the powers bestowed upon her in Bill 115 to impose a new contract and end the months-long impasse.
“Look, there will be no more time for negotiations and we do need to see agreements put in place,” Broten said.
“The act gives the government the ability to impose agreements where agreements have not been reached and when you put agreements in place, you do not have a situation where you have the opportunity to have labour unrest and that is something that is important to us.”
Enacted in September — in part to prevent labour disruptions in schools — Bill 115 gives school boards and unions until Dec. 31 to reach local agreements that must include specific parameters around pay and benefits modelled after an agreement reached in July between the provincial government and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association.
Unions representing elementary and high school teachers and other education workers are vehemently opposed to the legislation, which they say tramples on their democratic rights to collectively bargain and scraps sick leave and other benefits that were won in previous rounds of negotiations.
Broten says the bill is about “preserving the gains we’ve made in education while meeting our fiscal challenges,” which include a $14.4-billion provincial deficit.
Although the legislation also gives Broten the power to prevent strikes, the government has allowed elementary teachers across the province to hold one-day walkouts, beginning Monday in Stratford and Timmins.
Several thousand elementary school teachers are expected to picket at more than 60 locations in Ottawa on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) withdrew from all non-classroom work, including extracurricular sports and events such as holiday concerts, as of Monday.
“Ontarians expect us to be fair and balanced in the approach that we take,” Broten said of the walkouts.
“We are balancing the needs of teachers to express their concerns and the need of the province to have certainty with respect to the school year.”
That didn’t stop Premier Dalton McGuinty from rebuking the province’s public elementary school teachers union for launching a wave of one-day walkouts on Monday.
But McGuinty called the rotating strikes “a small price to pay” to protect full-day kindergarten, smaller class sizes and thousands of teaching jobs.
“The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario has disrupted nine years of labour peace over a disagreement about pay,” he said in a statement. “It’s regrettable that students miss any time learning, and it’s unfortunate that families will need to make alternate arrangements.”
While he’s disappointed that some teachers’ unions have put students in the middle, McGuinty said he hopes teachers will take no more than one day away from school.
The government has said it has drawn up legal documents to stop any strikes that stretch beyond a single school day.
Broten wouldn’t say in the interview how actively engaged the outgoing premier is on the labour dispute file, nor if the two are in daily contact.
“He is very focused on education and that is why we have seen the success that we have in Ontario’s education system,” she said.
Progressive Conservative education critic Lisa MacLeod says the teachers’ union should pay for the child care that parents are now scrambling to find for their kids. “Thirty to 50 dollars is a lot to a lot of Ontario families,” she said. “Especially those families who are going without this year because mom or dad doesn’t have a job.”
Once a contract is imposed, the only avenue left for unions to challenge Bill 115 may be through the courts.
Four of them, including ETFO and OSSTF, have already begun legal proceedings.
MacLeod says that’s probably the best place to settle the dispute anyway.
“At some point, the union is going to have to follow the law and if they don’t like the law, the best way to do this is to actually deal with it through the court system and not through the school system,” she said.
I have certain rules I live by ... My First Rule ... I don't believe anything the government tells me ... George Carlin
"Life Is What Happens To You When Your Busy Making Other Plans" John Lennon
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