Members of the unions representing secondary school teachers and teachers with the Catholic school board have voted to ratify tentative agreements that were reached with the province last month.
The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation both announced on Friday that their members have voted in favour of the tentative agreements reached with the provincial government on August 25 and August 20 respectively.
The votes mean that local OECTA and OSSTF bargaining units can now commence negotiations with individual school boards on a handful of remaining non-monetary issues, as part of a new two-tiered bargaining system.
“We have a ratified agreement on all central terms but now the local bargaining process has to begin and that will occur as quickly as possible,” OECTA President Ann Hawkins told CP24 on Friday. “Once the local is ratified, then the two pieces will go together to make the collective agreement for the teachers of that board.”
Though secondary school teachers and teachers with the province’s Catholic school boards now have contracts in reach, negotiations between the Government of Ontario and the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario remain stalled.
In a statement issued to CP24 on Friday, a spokesperson for that union said they have “heard nothing from the government” about resuming negotiations but remain willing to go back to the table at any time.
The government has also reached a tentative agreement with Ontario’s French-language teachers’ union, though that deal has not yet been ratified.
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