TORONTO -- Some Ontario high-school teachers are expected to take job action within two weeks, from missing staff meetings to not administering standardized tests.
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation is instructing its members who are in a legal strike position to stop those tasks -- and others -- starting Nov. 7.
Among the sanctions, teachers are being told not to attend staff or department meetings, communicate with parents outside of the regular school day or participate in activities involved in standardized tests -- including administering them.
Local bargaining units may also decide to instruct teachers to stop doing other tasks, such as not submitting student attendance or participate in curriculum or course writing.
OSSTF is among three unions who are fuming over a new anti-strike law brought in by the governing Liberals that also cuts benefits and freezes the wages of senior teachers.
OSSTF represents about 60,000 education workers across the province, but it's not yet clear how many high-school teachers are in a legal strike position as the union hasn't released that figure.
Some teachers have already withdrawn from voluntary activities in protest of the controversial law, such as coaching and parent-teacher meetings.
The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario has advised its 76,000 members to write only the bare minimum on report cards.
Education Minister Laurel Broten met with ETFO president Sam Hammond earlier this week to see if he would rescind the advice, but he wouldn't back down.
The legislation, which imposed a new two-year contracts on thousands of teachers, is based on an agreement the province reached with English Catholic and francophone teachers. It included three unpaid days off in the second year and reducing sick days in half to 10 a year.
But ETFO, OSSTF and CUPE Ontario, which represents 55,000 workers such as custodians and school secretaries, refused to sign on.
When the bill passed with the help of the Progressive Conservatives, the three unions vowed to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Rattled by the unions' declaration of war, the Liberals are trying to mend fences with the labour groups whose financial and organizational support helped get them re-elected over the past nine years.
Premier Dalton McGuinty bought time for the Liberals to repair that relationship when he prorogued the legislature last week and announced he would step down once a new leader is chosen.
McGuinty said he shut down the legislature to allow for a "cooling off period" that would give them time to negotiate with unions and the opposition parties on a wage freeze for nearly 500,000 public sector workers.
