From the Provincial Office of OSSTF.

 

For immediate release: May 27, 2015

(Toronto)—Despite our unequivocal disagreement with the rationale for the ruling received yesterday from the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB), and our very real concerns that this ruling will bring even more turmoil to education sector bargaining, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF/FEESO) will comply with and follow the orders contained in the OLRB decision.

OSSTF/FEESO teachers and occasional teachers at the Durham, Rainbow and Peel District School Boards will, however, resume a full withdrawal of services on June 10. The recommencement of strike action will take place following a two-week moratorium imposed by Bernard Fishbein, Chair of the OLRB.

“We will be acting in full compliance with the OLRB decision,” said OSSTF/FEESO President Paul Elliott. “The ruling calls for a two-week moratorium so that we can, as the OLRB Chair phrased it, ‘cleanse’ our local strike actions of any aspects that are ‘in respect of central bargaining’.”

“We emphatically maintain that these strikes have always been about local issues,” continued Elliott, “and our members in Durham, Rainbow and Peel will be back on the picket lines on June 10.”

OSSTF/FEESO, founded in 1919, has 60,000 members across Ontario. They include public high school teachers, occasional teachers, educational assistants, continuing education teachers and instructors, early childhood educators, psychologists, secretaries, speech-language pathologists, social workers, plant support personnel, university support staff, and many others in education.

Contact: Paul Elliott, President

Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation

416.751.8300 or 1.800.267.7867

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