OSSTF: No Deal On Contract Extensions!

My Teacher Acronym Guide is @ HERE!

Holidazed?!? School's Out -Merry Teacher Christmas!

OSSTF [Ontario Secondary School Teacher Federation] provides a rare public update on their negotiations with the troubled Ontario Wynne government. Wynne and the MOE [Ministry of Education] want to extend the existing teacher contracts as they attempt to negotiate compensation under the court's Bill 115 ruling. Links follow. Here's the OSSTF Update: 

The road to a possible extension of the current collective agreements for teachers/occasional teachers and support staff employed by school boards, which had been proposed by the provincial government in September, came to an abrupt dead-end on November 24. Discussions were halted when it became clear that the government was unwilling to honour its commitment that the school boards’ associations would not be allowed to play a significant role in the discussions.

The prospect of a contract extension was floated by government representatives when they met twice with OSSTF/FEESO in September to begin discussions of a possible remedy for the successful Charter challenge to Bill 115, which had been launched by OSSTF/FEESO and a number of other unions.

The Provincial Executive made it clear to the government representatives that any consideration of a proposal to extend the collective agreements would require approval and input from OSSTF/FEESO local leaders. Accordingly, a special meeting of local OSSTF/FEESO Presidents, Provincial Councilors and Chief Negotiators, as well as the Provincial Collective Bargaining Committee, was held in Toronto on September 29.

At the Provincial Council meeting the following day, motions were passed setting out a clear process for the negotiation of a possible contract extension and Bill 115 remedy, as well as a ratification process. A brief was approved at a subsequent meeting of Presidents and Chief Negotiators on October 13, and discussions commenced with government representatives on October 19.

OSSTF/FEESO had sought and received assurances from the government that the school boards’ associations would not have substantive input into these talks, but as discussions unfolded over a total of six dates during the following weeks, it became apparent that the school boards were playing an increasingly central role. And ultimately—though not surprisingly, given our experience in the last round of central table negotiations—it was the intransigence of the school boards’ associations that precipitated the termination of discussions.

Rather than embrace a collaborative approach to problem-solving, the boards refused to consider a mutual-consent process for mid-term amendments to collective agreements. And given the offer of funding for hundreds of additional support staff to assist and support the province’s most vulnerable students, the boards refused to guarantee that the funding would be used to provide that additional staff.

With the government’s failure to limit the role of the school boards in these discussions, and the determination of the boards’ representatives to undermine progress by clinging to needlessly antagonistic positions, it was not possible to come to an agreement.

OSSTF/FEESO is now preparing to commence local and central bargaining next year under the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act, and to pursue a ruling for the Bill 115 Charter challenge remedy through the courts. LINK

COMMENTARY

The Supreme Court has defacto ruled that the Wynne government, along with our province's school board trustees, acted in bad faith during 2012-13, when they imposing concession contracts our provinces teachers under Bill 115, aka "The OECTA Road Map". They have now been ordered to offer compensation.

The Wynne government has made it clear that they would like to negotiate a compensation deal, rather than let the courts decide what is to be done. Their plan would also conveniently delay another possible teacher strike or work action until after the next provincial election. It is very unclear to me why we would want to continue to thereby enable them in their despicable folly. 

OECTA: Me Too! Me Too?

The Neo Liberal Wynne government actively pursued a very negative "divide and conquer" strategy with our province's teacher unions again during the 2014-15 teacher CB [Collective Bargaining] talks. They nefariously continued to march to the corporate austerity agenda, paying for corporate tax cuts on the backs of our students, teachers and education system. Most regretfully, as the OSSTF memo shows, the OPSBA [Ontario Public School Board Association] trustee's are still up to their old "negotiation" tricks, with another nasty deceit, with their proposed fall 2016 contract extension talks!

Thankfully, one of our teacher unions is finally, clearly standing up to the manipulative Wynne Liberal's and her trustee bullies on behalf of the province's teachers. But, what about ETFO [Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario], or OECTA [Ontario English Catholic Teacher Union], or for that matter CUPE -Canadian Union Public Employees] representing many of Ontario's education workers?

What next? Where do we go from here?

LINKS:

Teacher Free Speech Archives 2011-2016 @ Here!

Teacher Free Speech + Grass Root Renewal @ Here!

On Bill 115: Glitches in the Matrix @ Here!

On Bill 115 -OECTA: What Was Said @ Here!

The OECTA Road Map + Putting Student's First Act [2012] @ Here!

Comparing the OSSTF + OECTA MOU [2012-13] @ Here!

OPSBA: What Was OSSTF Offered [2015] @ Here!

OLP Teacher Union Showdown [2015] @ Here!

On The Wynne Ultimatum and Teacher Bashing [2015] @ There!

Corporate Tax Cuts 2 B Paid For By Students + Teachers @ There!

One provincial teacher + support worker union @ And There!

COMMENTS: [Use Link below] ...

Bill 45: Ontario Reefer Madness!

Oh Cannabis! The "True North" strong and free! We stand on guard for thee .... or do we? Maybe the only real stand about to take place in Ontario, Canada is once again for somebody or anybody else?! Just not the average pleb like you and me? Go ask the provincial Wynne Liberal government and it's corporate, neo con, big business masters, if you are at all in doubt!

To Wit: On April 20th, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau preempted "420" protests across Canada. You might imagine our surprise when he suddenly announced out of the blue that marijuana would finally be legalized next year! Undaunted, Toronto Ontario's 420 marchers proceeded down Yonge Street with our victory flags held high. A happy, harmless cloud of pot smoke soon engulfed jam packed Dundas Square. As it spread across the downtown core, Toronto's huge lunchtime office and campus crowds soon emptied out into the all ready crowded streets full of pot smokers to spontaneously join in the festive celebrations. Endless lines of tour buses pulled up adding to the joyful bustle and buzz! 

420 Toronto 2016: Sampling the wares at Yonge + Dundas Square!

It was like nothing I have ever quite seen before in "Toronto the Good"! Finally, there seemed to be light at the end of the long, dark reefer madness tunnel of marijuana bummers, burns, ripoffs and despair. Torontonians of all backgrounds, colour, and age were briefly joined together in one big huge sigh of relief and joy! Perhaps our big payoff after years of suffering under the austerity measures of big business, banks and the Harper Conservative government had finally arrived?

Maybe not! Since Trudeau was elected last year on a platform to "legalize it", grass root Cannabis shops and lounges have been sprouting up and prospering all across our city. Toronto is quickly becoming Canada's Cannabis capital, providing a safe, friendly and very comfortable place to live and visit for medical and recreational marijuana users alike. Despite the worldwide economic turmoil, our great city seemed poised like never before to become Canada's #1 Summer Tourist hot spot. Along with it's many other attractions, Toronto is now also rich with plenty of new, small grass root businesses, cheap, friendly reefer and an 79 cent [US] dollar to boot! 

Justin: Ummm ... OK! OK! Smoke 'em if ya got 'em, eh! Like this ....

Pardon us small, inconsequential Canucks if we hope that the decades long, nasty, prohibition against "weed" might finally be over. So to the past excuses from which it was hatched, based upon class, race and political warfare! Steeped in deep prejudice and steered through parliament and courts by our nation's ruthless, self serving big business interests! Together, they still march in step to the beat of their US corporate counterparts, in the long since failed and discredited, so called "War Against Drugs"! [History Lesson] Forgive us if a proper way to regulate quality, remove the criminal element, and better keep it out of the hands of minors seems at hand! [Trudeau] For a brief moment anyway, as April drew to a close, it seemed our ignoble past had finally gone up in smoke! Had the 21st Century finally arrived?

Not if big business has it's way! Alas! The province's pharmacy and tobacco and other corporate interests have also been watching very carefully too. It should come as no surprise that they aren't impressed at all! Hardly! How else to explain that on April 28th Premier Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government suddenly passed the ill advised and nefarious Bill 45: Smoke Free Ontario and E-Cigarette Act 2016? [Read!] 

No matter that Premier Wynne, with thorough legal briefs from the law firm of Bennet Jones, was ready to throw Ontario's doors open for small business marijuana users and operators at the local level! [Legal Brief] Bill 45, once it takes effect on July 1st,  again threatens to again plunge us small folk back into the deep, dark, bottomless hole of corporate greed and naked self interest!

Wynne: No! No pot 4 you! My corporate pals know wot to do!

In case you are in doubt, let's briefly examine some of Bill 45's little known implications for our province's pot consumers + small business owners alike! Under the Wynne Liberal's Strengthening Ontario's Smoking + Vaping Laws [2016] ammendments to the Smoke Free Ontario and E-Cigarette Act [2015]:

Medical Cannabis is lumped together with recreational pot + E-Cigarettes! Medical marijuana patients will no longer be able to safely and comfortably buy and consume their weed and other paraphernalia in our province's mom and pop small biz dispensaries, shops and vapour lounges. Ditto, casual or quiting smokers who prefer the slow but easier and much more health conscious alternative of buying or using an E-cigarette instead of stopping "Cold Turkey". Or of wrecking their teeth on nicotine gums!Or sending their heart beat racing with a notorious nicotine patch!

No vaping or smoking cannabis will be allowed anywhere that tobacco is publicly banned! Both pot entrepreneurs and medical patients alike, along with the new crowds of recreational marijuana users come 2017, will once again be forced back into hiding! Their combustibles subject to arrest and seizure! How ironic! There isn't any clear medical proof that second hand vapour is dangerous like tobacco! [Medical] [Smoke] But medical users will be forced back into hiding! Vapour lounges and clubs won't any longer be allowed. Nor a medical stroll in the park either! Matter of fact, if you live in Ontario Public Housing, it will even be illegal to toke at home too! Thank you, Kathleen! Must be good news indeed for the criminal elements lurking in the dark forbidden places where they so easily find their prey!

Toronto Indie Pot Biz Threatened!

No Retailing of Vapourizers Allowed! Vaping unlike smoking does not release toxins into ones lungs or the air that others must breathe -but no matter! [Vapour] [Lungs] Medicated edibles? They remain an alternative, but they might very well not be agreeable to many users! Medical patients in particular, will again be forced into seeking unhealthy alternatives for their condition instead of being able to safely vape their weed!

No Retail Display of Other Goods Allowed Either! Merchants won't be able to display, answer questions, nor allow consumers to test the different strains and strengths of weed like they would any other product. Ditto the sampling of edibles, vapourizers or any other paraphernalia. Also included are the horticultural "grow your own" supplies otherwise allowed by law for medical marijuana patients!

No more safe, comfortable Cannabis Lounges Are Allowed! If the new law isn't challenged, big business can move in later to grab the entertainment and retail trade for themselves. Watch for the big tobacco companies to take over the E-Cigarette trade! Watch the LCBO and Shoppers Drug take over marijuana marketing and sales for themselves instead. Let's face it, it's too much of a cash cow! They don't want the very small time entrepreneurs and users who suffered under our oppressive and exploitive marijuana laws to now finally prosper and flourish instead. As for marijuana's naturopathic uses? Without doubt, the huge pharmaceutical companies will want to protect their huge monopoly on profits from that too!

420 Protester expresses her opinion on Bill 45 to Wynne! 

As a medical marijuana patient, I enjoy my weed! It's a safe alternative to Oxycontin and the other horrible chemical prescription drugs that I have been prescribed since my workplace injury teaching Special Ed. [School Daze] I don't drink booze either. Blech! So whatever happens, I will continue in my own merry way to toke at home in Toronto and the countryside with my own tunes, recreational activities, family and friends. 

Let me be frank [or David]; like many old school political activists, my days of going out on the town to party, protest and riot on the spur of the moment are now often infrequent at best. However, by and large, my experience with our local marijuana scene has been that most indie marijuana users and sellers, both medical and recreational, are politically null and void today. Still, it is they who will now need to arise and carry the torch across the finish line with Kathleen Wynne standing in the way!

Tourism Toronto sez: "Do lunch here!"

Fortunately, the CFBA [Cannabis Friendly Business Association] is helping organize the good fight across Ontario to hopefully give it some political direction. They are currently involved in providing PDF info flyer's, cards, letters and petitions explaining all that is at stake in much more detail @ [Here!] [There!] Please help! They've got some good stuff! For example, as their "Petition to Premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne to have the Ontario Liberals reconsider having medical marijuana in the Smoke-Free Ontario Act" states:

We the undersigned agree that if the Ontario Liberals include medical marijuana in the amendments to the Smoke-Free Ontario Act ... they would be infringing on the basic human rights of the approximately 30,000 medical users ...

Denying the patients the ability to utilize their medication when and where needed purely based on the type of medication is preposterous. One wouldn't question someone taking an asthma inhaler in public, why outlaw another medication by amending the Act?

If this change is allowed to happen a person could be charged for medicating anywhere but in their own home. In addition it would make vapour lounges, businesses that have operated efficiently with little to no community complaint some for over a decade, illegal and would force their owners out of their livelihoods.

These establishments operate in the same respect as bars do, with the major difference being that patrons supply their own marijuana/extracts versus acquiring alcohol at the establishment, where adult patrons enter with knowledge of potential health risks involved with partaking. With scientific evidence proving that both tobacco and alcohol are significantly more harmful than marijuana, we the undersigned wonder what is the basis for this addition to the Act?

Please note that the CFBA are also currently attempting to raise the necessary funds for their lobbying and legal expenses and fees. One of their first tasks is to seek a court injunction for the protection of medical marijuana patients. It's the patients basic constitutional rights that are most immediately and obviously at stake as a result of the Wynne governments ill conceived Neo Lib exercise in Corporate butt kissing! 

As Canuck as ....

CFBA plans also include a municipal campaign for the fair and proper licensing of the provinces cannabis shops and lounges to resist the corporate takeover of our provinces all ready existing small business marijuana community. They also plan to lobby the financial sector to remove the "Anti Cannabis Clause" in their merchant underwriting process.

Enough is enough! My Ontario does not include Bill 45 and the Wynne government's corporate marijuana agenda! Let's share these links and get involved in whatever ways we can! We've come so close! Yet we are still so far away! Let's fight for a truly legal, local grass roots business and consumer weed community all of our own. Stop the BS now, before it's too late!

In solidarity!

David C

Pax + Solidarity with all my good budz!

MORE LINKS

Spliff Magazine: Toronto Pot News y Views @ Online!

Toronto Now Magazine's 420 "Weed Issue" is @ Now

Article on Bill 45 and Your Vaping Rights in Ontario @ IdealVapes

Media Awareness Project: Latest Pot News Links from Across Canada @ Archive

Harper: Canadian Reefer Madness with Lots of Entertaining Links @ Blog!

Bob Marley + The Wailer Reviews! Part 1 @ Here Part 2 @ Here! Part 3 @ Here! Part 4 @ There!

Hi! Hi! Hi! My Visit to Bob Marley's Home in Jamaica @ Smile Jamaica!

Stoned: On The Beach in Jamaica @ Special Report!

Reefer Madness [1937]: The Original Movie! @ Youtube

Reefer Madness [2005]: The Showtime Remake @ Youtube

Sweet Marijuana [1934] Excerpt @ Youtube

Cheech y Chong's Dave's Not Here [Animated Short] @ Youtube

COMMENTS:

OSSTF Charter For Public Education!

My Acronym Guide is @ Here! Links/ edit/ pix still coming .....

Last weekend, as March break began, OSSTF passed the Charter for Public Education below at it's AMPA annual general meeting:

Basically, OSSTF [the Ontario Secondary School Teacher Federation] is calling for the creation of two, new, publicly funded secular school systems to be created in the province of Ontario. That would be accomplished by merging the four existing publicly funded Catholic and Public school systems together into two new streamlined ones, one being French, the other English. Both would be then be non denominational. Ontario would no longer publicly fund it's provincial Catholic school system. The goals, as stated are for better funding, and governance as well as for more "diversity, equity and fairness".

Many of us might not be aware of this development during the March school break. However, it has been long in coming and will without doubt be the topic of much staff room discussion in the weeks, months and perhaps years ahead, once classes resume.

Education Minister Liz Sandals, speaking at the OECTA [Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association] AGM last weekend, has all ready confirmed the Wynne Liberal government's ongoing, continued support for the Catholic school system @. 

The Catholic teachers can take some comfort in that they are safe for now. The Wynne government holds a clear majority of seats at Queen's Park. It's still early in their term. The Liberals can pretty much say and do what they please, for now. However, they are very unpopular, scandal proned and economically on the rocks. In addition, recent polling suggests that Catholic school funding does not enjoy widespread popular support. Indeed, a recent Forum Poll shows that 52% of Ontarians are opposed to public Catholic school funding. Furthermore, there is strong cross party support for it's elimination with the party by party breakdown currently at OLP=49%, PC=51%, NDP=53% @ Sun

Public and Catholic school supporters will continue to argue endlessly over whether big is better or whether eliminating public funding for the Catholic school system will result in improved service, governance and financial savings. The verdict is still out. Municipal improvements since amalgamation, beginning in the Harris years, and continuing through successive Liberal governments, has clearly been a path fraught with peril. As good as it might sound in theory, the savings and benefits have not materialized. One can even strongly argue that community input, involvement and our highly diverse, interests and needs have suffered at the local level. 

The debate will surely heat up now, with no clear answers in sight. Although the OSSTF Charter raises many interesting points and worthy goals, objectively speaking one must still wonder; Will a merger of our school systems fare any better? 

Of course, Ontario's Catholic school system also enjoys a Constitutional right to public funding. Like any other group, Catholic school supporters will naturally be very hesitant to willingly surrender their hard fought gains. How far these rights actually go though is a political decision, one that over the years has been extended further into and through the secondary school level. 

Furthermore, in the legal struggle between denominational verses human rights, staunch, traditional, Catholic school supporters might well find themselves on the wrong side of history in the developed world. In Ontario, we continue to proceed at a break neck speed as a highly diverse and secular society into the new millennium. Times change. Like it or not, there isn't any realistic prospect of rolling back the hands of the clock in Ontario to days' past.  

Look around! Our very diverse province of Ontario is irrevocably changing to become much more inclusive and accepting of others. As far as hiring and employment practices, or for that matter publicly funded religious instruction goes, the traditional Catholic church, as opposed to it's more progressive, social justice wing, continues to insist upon inflexible positions that increasingly put it at odds with our much cherished Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

True, Catholic denominational rights have provided an opting out clause from embracing the increasingly progressive social changes that are sweeping us today, on religious grounds. How long that will continue to hold much public succour is questionable however. Across Canada the auspices have not been good. We all know about the horrible abuse at the residential schools. Also, there's a growing "spotlight", as highlighted at this year's Oscar awards, on the percentile of long unchecked and institutionalized paedophiliac activity at the parish level, now illuminating the Catholic church's once seemingly immune moral frock. Long term, the prospects of maintaining the past status quo, do not seem to be shining in the favour of publicly funded Catholic denominational rights anymore.

True, Catholicism has been blessed with the arrival of Pope Francis. He often might be like a breath of fresh air from on high to the churches progressive wing. Regretfully, at this point one must objectively wonder if his papacy hasn't become a question of too little too late despite his excellent efforts and intentions to drag some of the churches more controversial practices screaming and fighting into our modern times. The elasticity required in a highly developed and diverse place like the Ontario we live in today is not slow and unbending. These are quite different times from when the Catholic school denominational rights were originally founded in the 1867 BNA Act. 

Like it or not, from a human rights perspective these denominational rights simply would not fly if they were being negotiated today. We increasingly see that with the troubling controversy over GSA's and the LGBTQ. Also, over the lack of rights for non Catholics within the publicly funded Catholic school system. It will increasingly become unpopular to publicly fund what today are legally considered very discriminatory practices, especially in these economically challenging times.

It's unfortunate that the Catholic church is being centred out among religions for past sins and it's sense of entitlement and special privileges. But in Ontario, the Catholic schools are alone in being publicly funded. Voters have already rejected extending public school funding to other faiths. What will happen if Catholic school funding where to become an issue in our next provincial election?

ICE has been organizing the Catholic community in case of just such an eventuality for many years. OECTA has been actively involved with the initiative, as have the Catholic parishes, school board officials and trustees. Likewise, the OSSTF Charter of Public Education has not just suddenly appeared out of thin air. 

Recent indicators of both sides political activity include the Hamilton Catholic board. It has been encouraging the faithful to participate in a newspaper letter writing campaign in support of the schools []. Even the Toronto Star recently admitted, in a byline below a story, that it was being republished to re-emphasize that a cut to Catholic school funding was one of the top, public, budget requests []. These signs are only the most recent and obvious. Interests on both sides of the Catholic school funding issue have long been organizing and lobbying public sentiment and the political powers that be, for the fight ahead. Take sides as you will, but we can't really fault either for trying. That's how our political system works. It's what politicos do. And make no mistake, ICE's various activities, like the OSSTF Charter of Public Education are both very political indeed.

Certainly, Education Minister Sandals public declaration of support for Catholic education at the OECTA AGM, coming right on the heels of OSSTF's Charter of Public Education was pure politics in action too! Would it be a stretch of the imagination to guess that it was a much appreciated gift for breaking union solidarity with CUPE, ETFO and OSSTF via the surprise 2012 OECTA MOU? Or in tacit recognition of OECTA's relatively, very feeble attempt at strike action during the last round of CB?

Where there is smoke, we look for fire. In OECTA's case there isn't any smoking gun. Still, don't doubt that Ms. Sandals is a political animal. This week provided Liz with an excellent opportunity to further stick her knife deep into the very heart of teacher union solidarity. Are you surprised that she's only too happy to help somebody out who has often seemed so inclined to play let's make a deal! Then afterwards even poses for a photo op with the OECTA beginning teachers! In this, her political instincts might be considered pretty good. She was all ready person no gratis at the OSSTF AMPA. With a throw of the dice, Liberal chances of winning over the Catholic vote come next election could suddenly increased exponentially, while others are overwhelmingly saying no thanks to her sorry ass party!

Of course, the Liberals aren't doing well in the polls! Then again, neither is support for publicly funded Catholic education! A cynic might claim that misery loves company -a realist that maybe they will both go down together? Let's suppose the opposition PC's decide to run on a secular system platform similar to OSSTF's Charter for Public Education? Is it inconceivable then that OECTA was also trying to hedge it's own bets in courting PC Party Leader Pat Brown at the AGM?

Well, let's be clear. OECTA has long had a policy of engagement with all three of Ontario's main political parties, the OLP, the PC's and the NDP. It's sometimes worked out quite well to the teachers' advantage, other times not. It is not necessarily nefarious or a bad thing to do in and of itself. However it is risky. To wit:

In 2003, PC Education Minister Liz Witmar tried to use the OECTA AGM to put a "happy face" on Ernie Eve's failed makeover of the Mike Harris PC's. Had all gone well, might a showy teacher love fest have helped smooth over their desperate election bid after years of labour strife and unrest?

Perhaps MOE Witmar thought the PC's had it in the bag? Wrong! OECTA dissent was still tolerated, if only just barely. Liz unceremoniously got the bum's rush from disgruntled teachers when she was boooed out of the hall! Then inadvertently was caught up in the mad crush of a very confusing media and PC klown show as they pushed and shoved the teacher membership, caught on the news cameras outside the AGM door! 

Fast forward to 2016. Another Liz, this time MOE Sandals, now also accepts the invite. In contrast, is it safe to say, she too tried to play OECTA like a fiddle, quite successfully this time? For the now otherwise quite nasty Liberal parties political gain? 

On a more constructive note, OECTA's engagement with the McGuinty Liberals helped produce good results for all of the province's teachers, before, during and after the Great Tory Defeat in the do or die election of 2003. A decent two way working relationship was successfully established with the new Liberal government for awhile at least. The results were far from perfect. But teachers were no longer stuck standing outside of Queens Park with our protest signs forlornly looking in. 

It did not last. Such is the nature of the political beast. However, I firmly believe that a good base line for what's possible when the Ontario government and it's teacher's can actually work together for the common good, for a brief period anyways, was achieved.

During the McGuinty years, many OECTA teachers, like their public counterparts but perhaps to a greater degree, voluntarily liasoned with the Liberals. Others with the NDP. We were embedded in the parties as teacher representatives. Being "embedded" with a political party was quite different than being "in bed" with them however. My own understanding was that we were always teachers first. We were only party members but for a definite teacher union member purpose. 

So there I was, a novice at joining a political party. Quite frankly, I wouldn't ever want to join a political party again. At the time it was good, important work, from a grass root member perspective. But after the MOU betrayal, I soon quit helping out the Liberals, and for that matter retired as an OECTA teacher and local unit executive officer too. 

Quite frankly, I am not going to work to aid and abet any party that is going after our teacher unions. Nor for that matter a union when it engages in concession bargaining. In neither case are we working for the good interests of the teacher membership. Maybe for the self serving politicos or an out of touch union elite, but for our grass root members? Others might see it differently and do so in good faith, still with a greater common purpose in mind. I'm not sure how that is still possible. Indeed many seemingly quite good teacher activists from my generation have long since seemed to just hang on, roll over and play dead. Me? No can do.

Fortunately, I had a choice as I had reached retirement age. We had a good run at it back in the day. I think it should be mandatory to get up out of the sandbox so a younger generation of teacher activists can arise to the formidable tasks at hand. Re-establish an effective baseline again some day. For my part, I'm quite happy that I can still write and otherwise be politically involved at the grass root level where and when it interests me, without having to dance to somebody else's bad tune. I have few regrets.

Next year our teacher affiliates will be negotiating new contracts with the Liberal government again. If more division ensues, OECTA and OSSTF can point fingers over whom crossed the line first over the contentious issue of Catholic school funding. Or in signing off on an MOU. Unfortunately, the bottom line might well be that the Liberals are even better positioned than ever to pursue an effective divide and conquer strategy as our teacher affiliates fight among themselves over Catholic school funding and cut throat Liberal deals!

Anway, I won't dwell in my senior moments any further except to say that my life is pretty much just one big, long, break nowadays. Many of you however will be returning to school where there will be much talk about OSSTF's Charter of Public Education. If the last few years are any indication of what lies ahead, look for most of your teacher affiliates to once again invoke the "cone of silence". At least one has even been known to warn members not to discuss the a lot of union topics with others on the social media, unless it is in a tightly supervised, and controlled forum. I'd be willing to bet that most of you will be expected to supposedly be loyal to your union by just touting the party line. 

Regretfully, that does not facilitate the level of professional complexity and integrity of argument and debate that we as teachers are capable of exercising as we talk among ourselves within our broader teacher union movement. Nor is it what's is really needed to meaningfully flesh out the many issues at stake in a constructive and in depth way. If we truly believe in better building our union movement, we need to be able to critically think for ourselves and talk openly with each other about our different positions on the issue at hand, not just ape the official party line.

Indeed, an informed union member who truly cares will want to find ways to improve all of our situations for the common good. By blindly following the ... ahem ... leadership, we might just do each other in for the Liberals, or for that matter Pat Brown's PC party. 

As always, your Teacher Free Speech Comments can be posted anonymously below if you'd like to avail yourself of this option but feel at risk. Otherwise, please -we are the teachers of Ontario. Whatever your union position on the OSSTF Charter For Education, ask questions, think about it and urge your "powers that be" to exercise constraint so they don't shoot themselves, or you, in the foot. The battle lines between us are now clearly being drawn. The government has the upper hand. The risks of getting fatally hurt are just too high to unquestionably risk any further folly.

In solidarity!

David C

FURTHER READING

On Teacher Free Speech and Grass Root Renewal @ My Blogsite!

COMMENTS:

One Provincial Teacher Union?

CONSIDER THIS:

How can we create one province wide teacher and educational support worker union here in Ontario?

While the Wynne government decides how to repair it's flawed, new CB Act [2015] after the latest teacher contract debacle, the province's teachers and education workers certainly have their work cut out for them too! Each of the unions; AEFO, CUPE, ETFO, OECTA and OSSTF included, need to stop merely protecting their own turf and inner cliques. We need now more than ever, to consider the bigger picture together as one!

Divided, and self serving, the different unions have proved largely unable to co-ordinate with any convincing degree of teacher solidarity between affiliates, a credible and effective offensive against the bullying, bashing and questionable OLP deal making frenzy of the past 14 months. 

Our union movement cannot continue to be so disorganized and susceptible to such divide and conquer tactics! It's time to begin, as grass root members from all the different affiliates, a discussion that unfortunately in many cases our plutocrats at provincial will not want to hear! 

Perhaps you have all ready heard the growing buzz about the need for one big province wide teacher union on the social media? Lots of us have! Sometimes, warning letters and threats of disciplinary action have even all ready been issued for those in a leadership position, however minor, accused of engaging in public discussion of the topic. If anyone at "head office" is overreacting that much, then they must be afraid. But of what and for whom? 

Fortunately, your individual teacher free speech comments can be posted anonymously on this blogsite. I don't suspect there are any easy answers for how we could create such a province wide union or what it will look like! However, if anybody would like to share your ideas, for respectful discussion purposes, there's a handy dandy "Comments" section below this blog. Please feel free!

Let me begin with three suppositions, as some basic food for thought:

A STRENGTH TO BUILD ON:

Strength in Numbers: Acting together in solidarity as one provincial union, we could better negotiate and take job actions from a position of strength. We'd benefit as a more powerful, collective force; a united front against the aggressive provincial government scenarios we increasingly face. Be they Rae Dayish NDP, Neo Con Harrisite or Neo Lib Wynne, all of them have been bad news for us; our profession, our students and our schools! The OLP "austerity" agenda, to put it simply, is just more subtle, then the "Common Sense Revolution" or even the "Social Contract". The recent "ultimatum" and it's aftermath shows that we are just in too much danger not to rally our forces! Better late than never!

A THREAT TO AVOID:

Plutocracy: Many of our affiliates are increasingly run by a centralized, executive elite. Often, they are unelected officials yielding most of the resources, calling much of the shots. Could one big province wide union end up remodelling this institutional behaviour into a monolithic behemoth that is even more cut off and unresponsive to it's grass root members? 

We need not be scared off! New ideas require new ways of thinking and rebuilding, such that to paraphrase good ol' Buckminister Fuller, we need to create a new model that makes the old one obsolete. How do we set up a new province wide teacher union that is both more democratic and accountable, and with greater possibilities for direct involvement by the membership? Where and how to begin? No easy task!

NON BARGAINING:

Granted, the "Catholic issue" will be touchy for supporters and opponents of the publicly funded denominational system alike. I am going to suggest that these and other "particular issues" reflecting the great diversity of teachers, students and schools in our province could be accommodated as a separate part of the individual "political" rather than the greater collective "bargaining" units within each board across the province, until the bigger issue of separate school funding is later sorted out, one way or another, due to the urgency of our task. I might be a bit of a dreamer here, but hopefully I'm not the only one, as how to do that will certainly require a lot more reflection too!

So. If interested, please feel free to add your thoughts below:

COMMENTS?

On the Wynne Ultimatum + Teacher Bashing!

[Or "Feasting on the Corpse of Ontario Collective Bargaining!"] 

With the dumbfounding "Wynne Ultimatum" and a mad frenzy of media teacher bashing perhaps unseen since the Harris Years, it's been a "week from hell" for many of our province's teachers and education support workers! Despite the fall of Steven Harper! And quite unfairly so! 

As my October 25th blog below shows, the OCSTA and OPSBA school board bargaining agents ["trustees"] received $4,572,632 in Collective Bargaining payments for 2014-15 alone! Surprise! Guess what? It turns out that's about the same as the total controversial amount received by all the teacher unions combined, from the MOE since 2008! 

News of the teacher union payments has certainly gotten John "Cued" Public and Jane "Ontario" Doe royally p.o'ed! However, please note; the amount was clearly spelled out in a well known MOE July 15th memo [LINK] on GSN grants for Special Education! How come it wasn't breaking news then? Or for that matter still isn't, except on our decidedly underground but still free social media?!? 

Instead, all we hear in the mainstream media is the media teacher bashing frenzy which reached a feverish pitch Friday over the teacher union CB payments! The school board trustees at most got passing mention that they had received some kind of undisclosed funds too. It was usually towards the end of a fiery denunciation of our teacher unions being given a lot of tax payer dollars. Further fuelling the flames, the totals are now considerably more than originally estimated since the provincial auditor released the numbers covering the 3 sets of negotiations from 2008, 
for AEFO, ETFO, OECTA and OSSTF combined [LINK]. 

Seems there's an inconvenient truth here; one that's too inconvenient to mention in any detail! Namely that the Wynne government has awarded ALL the parties involved in the troubled negotiations with payments to cover the huge cost overruns associated with, what they now admit, is their new, flawed, collective bargaining model!

No matter that ETFO and CUPE have been without a contract for 14 months! Or that AEFO, OECTA and OSSTF quite frankly settled for bad ones! The OPSBA and OCSTA trustees' huge windfall, in the face of their frequent intransigence in refusing to negotiate, has not been deemed worthy of public notice. Obviously, the neo con media doesn't care about our right wing trustees' $4,572,632 payment. It's out for only one thing -teacher blood!

Premier Wynne has been pretty mum for a long time now on the floundering, nay stalled collective bargaining talks. Then came her rather puzzling announcement Friday. She has threatened to deduct pay from the remaining teacher and education support worker's who still don't have a contract, for -get this: NOT performing volunteer activities for free, if they don't reach a deal by November 1st! 

One assumes that like the other big wig "leaders" in the AEFO, OECTA and OSSTF teacher union provincial offices, she's been hunkering down for some very self serving damage control, especially since the shit hit the fan over the huge pay outs. The same money that some are now referring to as "hush funds" for the whole huge debacle, after the teacher numbers hit the news this week.

Quite arguably, this was payment to cover cost overruns related to the flawed Liberal government's CB process, as the premier has explained. Certainly, 1000's of hours were spent in wasted negotiations going nowhere. In the real world that does cost money. Unless of course our teacher officials pack a veeeeeery big picnic basket. Then raced from far and wide across our province, heading on foot to Toronto whenever beckoned by OPSBA, OCSTA and the MOE. Perhaps sleeping instead in their chairs for days, weeks and months on end. While Kathleen and Liz fiddled about endlessly with their "new CB model" and tempers burned! 

Be that as it may, our supposed union "leaders" still look as thick as thieves in my books. Having feasted on the rotting corpse of collective bargaining in this province, these patricians then took the "Wynne fall" money to just pipe down and go convince their members to accept whatever table scraps they were able to bring home for the plebs, their teacher members. 

For shame! Did they dig in their heels and fight long and hard to get back your sick day banks? No, far from it! They have reportedly negotiated to fund the CB cost overruns with them, as the classroom teachers receive pennies on the dollars under the new sick day bank "cash in" agreement. It's quite the stink! A big mess all around! 

So. What have we learned this week? Well, if you didn't know all ready, it must be a very disturbing truth to learn so late in the game: the media is not a very accurate reflection of reality! Nor do they seem to be prepared to do any owning up any time soon; and the damage is all ready done!

Alas! If you are an ETFO teacher, or a CUPE education support worker, then you know you are getting kicked in the teeth for everybody else's shortcomings, by both our illustrious premier, the Education Minister and our mainstream media! 

ETFO members can at least take some consolation in that your affiliate has unequivocally stated that they are not interested, in nor will they religiously accept, any 30 pieces of silver in payment for this shit storm. You certainly are owed a lot of our respect for still standing on principle! For leading by example!

The notorious OECTA Code of Silence has firmly descended over anything and everything OECTA once again, always a very ominous sign. As for our OSSTF education support workers? Well, maybe you can still get Elliott off his duff to pull something real and substantial for you out of this dung heap. Who knows? Good luck!

The fresh breath of air that otherwise welcomed new hope in Ottawa this week did not provide us with much relief in Ontario, as teachers. But of course education is a provincial portfolio. And even in Ottawa, Trudeau is still a newbie when it comes to actually standing up to our countries real Neo Liberal powers that be. 

The whiff of despair, must seem quite palpable in the teacher and educational support worker trenches. Still, see my field report on the resolute ETFO Wynne Wednesday rally last week. Or the flurry of CUPE member tweets as they once again proudly and steadfastly donned black every Friday. 

We were all once a part of a proud Ontario teacher union movement that stood tall! Let's hope that there are some real leaders out there at CUPE, ETFO and even OSSTF who still are willing to do so as push comes to shove! That they are not about to follow the sad example we've seen so far; of those who will collaborate and acquiesce, giving in to the all too self evident deep, dark cynicism, and manipulation of our Wynne government and a Vichy union mentality. The alternative does not serve us, our provinces working families, or the future generations whom we teach, very well! Let's hope it's not too late!

COMMENTS: