following a decision by the Ford government to impose a contract on them, briefly resulting in the closure of most schools.but the others unions that make up the province’s education sector have remained without a new contract.
But union leaders say it seems unlikely that deals will be reached before the start of the school year. Here is a look at what the union leaders have said about the ongoing negotiations with the province:Karen Brown, the president of ETFO, which represents 83,000 elementary teachers, occasional teachers, and education workers in Ontario, said the union has two bargaining dates with the province at the end of this month.
“Classrooms are overcrowded. We are coming back from a pandemic. We all want stability and we want students in school,” she said. While he expects teachers and students will return to the classroom in September, he added that if significant progress isn’t made soon, it would be “a mistake to assume” that bargaining will continue the way it did last year.
Littlewood said while it is not unusual to go a year without a contract, going much beyond that is “expecting a lot of the people working in education.”