Teachers’ strike enters second week

By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express

For Durham District School Board chair Mike Barrett, the second week of the public high school teachers’ strike looks an awful lot like the first one.

“Well unfortunately, there’s been no movement. We’re sitting here in week two, and there’s no discussions scheduled for today and no discussions scheduled for tomorrow,” Barrett told The Oshawa Express on Monday morning.

Barrett adds there has been zero communication between the school board and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF), the union that represents public high school teachers in the region.

“We’re trying to work toward a framework where we can at least have discussions. But there’s nothing planned. We are working at it, but can’t get back to the table,” he says. “I’m frustrated.”

While the strike in Durham started its second week, the strike of public high school teachers also under the OSSTF banner in the Rainbow District School Board, which represents 10 public high schools in the Sudbury area, started its strike on Monday morning.

The union has also announced that the bargaining unit for high schools in Peel Region, which includes 40 secondary schools in Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon with more than 40,000 students, has set a strike deadline of May 4 – next Monday.

Dave Barrowclough, the president of OSSTF’s District 13 – which covers Durham Region – says the school board is dragging its feet on getting back to bargaining.

“We’re still waiting to have some dates set, unfortunately. We’re a little frustrated with that,” he tells The Oshawa Express. “(DDSB) seems to be very worried about the provincial and central (issues) split, which doesn’t make any sense to me because we’ve tabled a brief of local issues and they should be able to come to the table and bargain to fruition on those.”

Barrowclough adds that his fellow union members in Sudbury have run into the same issues with the Rainbow District School Board as his have run into with DDSB.

“It seems their board is making the same conversations as our board has been making,” he says, adding he believes the school boards have a provincial plan set out. “I hope we can get somewhere faster than this, but at this point, it’s looking like week two is looking a lot like week one.”