School boards claim Ontario secondary teachers’ strikes are ‘unlawful’

Ontario, School boards in the regions of Peel, Durham and Sudbury are asking that the teachers’ strikes that have been happening at local high schools for the last several weeks be deemed “unlawful.”
The Peel, Durham and Rainbow district school boards will be filing a joint application to the Ontario Labour Relations Board in an effort to get them to declare the local Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation strikes as illegal.
According to a release sent out by the Peel District School Board Tuesday, all three school boards believe that the OSSTF undertook strike action over matters that are being negotiated at the provincial table, including class sizes, teacher professionalism, and supervision time.

Technically, the strikes began as a result of stalled negotiations happening at a local level. Issues debated at the local level include low-level matters related to personnel files and other HR procedures.
Under the new bargaining legislation, strikes are only allowed as a form of protest to locally-bargained issues.
“We’re calling on the OLRB to rule that the secondary teachers’ union waged an unlawful strike to put pressure on the provincial negotiations. This ruling would return Peel, Durham and Rainbow students to their classrooms, where we know they can finish off the school year positively, without further disruption,” Janet McDougald, chair of the Peel board, said in the news release.
However, OSSTF District 19 President Mike Bettiol, who represents the local union in Peel Region, maintains members are only discussing local issues.
“We don’t believe it is an illegal strike… All we’ve mentioned at the bargaining table, all we’ve mentioned to our membership, all I’ve mentioned to anyone has been local issues, things we are able to negotiate locally,” Bettiol told CP24 Tuesday afternoon.
“Instead of spending their time trying to negotiate with us and come to an agreement, what they (the boards) are doing is taking time to file these motions and trying to basically avoid coming to the table and bargaining with us.”
Durham teachers were the first to walk off the job on April 20 and teachers with the Rainbow District School Board followed suit on April 27. Peel secondary school teachers decided to take strike action on May 4.