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EDITORIAL: Why at a press conference?

March 6, 2020   ·   0 Comments

WE’LL LIKELY NEVER KNOW why it was that Education Minister Stephen Leccee chose a press conference Tuesday to announce a retreat on two issues that had created a months-long impasse between the government and Ontario’s four teacher unions.

Normally such moves would take place at the bargaining table, but in the case of the province’s high school teachers there have been no contract talks since mid-December.

Just a day earlier, Premier Doug Ford declared that his government would not “roll over” to the teacher unions by giving in to the unions’ demands for a 2 per cent wage increase, double what the government is prepared to give any public servants.

In the circumstances, it will be interesting to see whether the unions are prepared to negotiate, having until now based their public campaigning on the need to preserve the quality of education.

As we see it, the government should resume contract talks with all four unions immediately in exchange for the unions agreeing to call off further strike action while the talks are under way. The objective should be to have agreements reached with all the unions by the end of the schools’ March break.

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