The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation says negotiations with the province and the Ontario Public School Boards' Association have once again reached an "impasse."
In a news release sent out Saturday night, the OSSTF said after two days of discussions with a mediator, the two sides were unable to make any headway.
"In spite of our best efforts to find a path to an agreement, the Government and OPSBA continue to attack our existing contracts, and insist on contract strips that would have a negative impact in Ontario classrooms for teachers and students alike," OSSTF President Paul Elliot said in a written statement.
"We want nothing more than to reach a negotiated settlement, but we simply can’t agree to terms that undermine our members’ working conditions, and can only lead to inferior learning conditions for our students.”
The OSSTF says it will now apply for conciliation for central table bargaining under the Ontario Labour Relations Act.
The province has not yet released any statement responding to the latest news.
Public high school teachers in Durham and Sudbury walked off the job last month and Peel District School Board educators joined the strike at the beginning of May.
The school boards are awaiting a decision from a hearing held last week by the Ontario Labour Relations Board, which is tasked with determining if the strikes are illegal.
The boards contend that teachers are striking over provincial issues and because the strikes began as a result of stalled negotiations happening at a local level, they are in violation of the new bargaining system introduced last year.
The OLRB is expected to release its decision next week.
The provincial government has also asked the Education Relations Commission to determine if the strike action has put high school students’ school years at risk.
