Media Advisory - ETFO members to give OPSBA an 'F' for bargaining - Saturday at Blue Mountain

TORONTO, June 11, 2015 /CNW/ - The Ontario Public School Boards' Association (OPSBA) will receive a failing grade for its approach to bargaining from teachers planning a mass picket outside the association's annual meeting at the Blue Mountain Resort this Saturday.

Members from Durham, Toronto, Halton, Peel, Simcoe County, York Region and other locals of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) will picket the meeting being held at The Westin Trillium House from 12:00 noon – 2:00 p.m. ETFO's collective agreements have been expired for 10 months with little progress made at the central bargaining table because of contract strips tabled by OPSBA.

OPSBA has received the failing grade in bargaining because it:

• has tabled strips to collective provisions that were fairly negotiated, through give and take, over more than a decade;
  
  
• tabled these strips in February and has not changed its position at all or negotiated in any meaningful way since then; and
  
  
• has tabled demands that would allow increases in class sizes, have teachers' preparation time directed by school administrators, undermine teachers' ability to determine which assessments are most appropriate for their class, and compromise teacher working conditions and students' learning conditions.

ETFO is prepared to return to the bargaining table any time that OPSBA and the government are prepared to remove the offensive concessions off the central bargaining table. 

What:	ETFO locals picket OPSBA Annual Meeting
When:	Saturday, June 13, 2015, 12:00 noon - 2:00 p.m.
Where:	Westin Trillium House
	220 Gord Canning Drive
	Blue Mountains

SOURCE Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario

Janet Bigham, President, ETFO Simcoe County Local, Cell: 705-795-2183, [email protected]; Valerie Dugale, ETFO Media Relations, Cell: 416-948-0195, [email protected]