Strikes Averted: 1) Elementary Teachers and 2) No Frills Reaches Deal With Workers, Averts Strike At Ontario Stores Including Simcoe County
1)Ontario Elementary Teachers Reach Tentative Contract Deal
Courtesy of Barrie360.com and Canadian PressPublished:
Nov 21st, 2023
By Allison Jones in Toronto
Ontario’s public elementary teachers announced Tuesday they have reached a
tentative contract with the provincial government, averting central strikes for
the next three years, if the deal is ratified.
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario said the deal covering 80,000
teachers and occasional teachers “protects their collective agreement
entitlements and also addresses key bargaining goals,” but it is not making
details public yet.
“This has been the longest round of central bargaining in ETFO’s history,
but we persisted,” president Karen Brown wrote in a statement.
“We remained focused on getting government cuts off the table and on
addressing members’ working conditions, which are students’ learning
conditions.”
The union is set to share details of the agreement with members on Thursday.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce said it involves “some items” that will be
decided through binding arbitration.
Ontario has already agreed to give public high school teachers and ETFO
education workers retroactive salary increases to compensate them for
constrained wages under a law known as Bill 124. Amounts were agreed to for two
of the three years affected by Bill 124, but the amount for the third year will
be decided at arbitration.
Lecce would not confirm if that was among the items to be settled for ETFO’s
teacher members. He urged the two other teachers’ unions, representing English
Catholic teachers and teachers in the French system, to agree to deals.
ETFO’s deal came after well over a year of bargaining.
“Perhaps some of the teacher unions (are) reading the room a bit better
today than in the past, recognizing that the parents, which we all serve and
support, they want their kids to be in school,” Lecce said.
Members of ETFO had previously voted 95 per cent in favour of a central
strike, and Brown said that is what made the difference at the bargaining
table.
“Once they saw that strong mandate, we saw some movement,” Brown said in an
interview. The talks nearly went in the opposite direction, she said.
“We continued to see that movement when we were pushing to go to a no-board
report, which meant if they weren’t going to move, we were going to file for a
no-board report, which would begin the process of a strike.”
The minister said he is pleased the deal will eliminate the threat of
central strikes for the life of the deal, if ratified.
“(It) allows them to get back to basics and strengthen their reading,
writing and math scores,” he said. “This is what matters most to the
government.”
Local deals also get bargained with individual school boards and Brown said
ETFO locals retain the ability to strike if those negotiations stall.
The government is still in bargaining with the Ontario English Catholic
Teachers’ Association, whose members also voted in favour of a strike, and with
the union representing teachers in the French public system.
Meanwhile, public high school teachers are going to binding arbitration with
the government in order to get a new contract, eliminating the possibility of a
strike.
2)No Frills Reaches Deal With Workers, Averts Strike At Ontario Stores Including Simcoe County
Courtesy of Barrie360.com and Canadian PressPublished: Nov 19th, 2023
By Rosa Saba and Liam Casey in Toronto
Unifor has reached a tentative deal on behalf of almost 1,300 No Frills workers across Ontario, the union said Sunday, averting a looming strike that was set to get underway in less than 24 hours.
The union had announced the strike deadline on Thursday, calling for higher wages and better working conditions for employees at 17 stores, including two in Simcoe County.
The job action could have started as early as Monday.
No Frills is the discount grocery banner owned by Loblaw Cos. Ltd., the largest grocery company in Canada.
“No Frills workers knew that the public would have their back in their demand for their fair share of Loblaw’s enormous profits,” said Gord Currie, Unifor Local 414 president.
“Workers made it very clear that they were ready to strike, if necessary, in order to achieve our necessary demands for decent work and pay.”
The 17 stores include locations in Barrie (319 Blake Street), Bradford (305 Barrie Street), Toronto, Whitby, Niagara Falls, and elsewhere.
Unifor previously cited growing profits at Loblaw amid the rising cost of living as the reason for their wage demands, saying workers were fed up with the disparity between their pay and the company’s earnings.
The No Frills workers — most of which are part-time — will now vote on the tentative deal from Monday to Saturday. Details of the deal were not released due to the coming vote.
“Our bargaining committee at No Frills was determined to build on what grocery store workers had achieved this past summer with Metro,” Unifor National President Lana Payne said in a statement.
“This tentative agreement delivers pattern wages and many other improvements for our members.”
Loblaw did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Metro workers at 27 stores across the Toronto area reached a five-year deal after a month-long strike this past summer.
About 2,700 workers there got an immediate raise of $1.50 an hour. full-time and senior part-time workers will get an additional 50-cent raise in January, bringing their total pay increase over the coming months to $2-an-hour.
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