Special Meeting for in-person workers – follow up information

Dear OSSTF Toronto Members,

Thank you for attending the Special Meeting for Recalled Workers held on January 25th.  We hope you found it a good use of your time.  Since the meeting each Bargaining Unit leadership team has has taken the concerns you shared directly to senior board officials.  We will continue to report on progress made in these areas as information becomes available.

Appended below, for your reference, is a summary of the information we shared.  Please keep a copy of this information handy and share it with your colleagues who were unable to attend the meeting.

Reporting a health and/or safety concern – if you don’t report it, we can’t get it fixed

PSSP Members should first contact your Health and Safety Inspector:

OTBU/TTBU Members:

OTBU/TTBU Members may also contact the Inspector assigned to your school. Click this link, then select the name of your school into the search bar.  The Inspector’s name will come up. Click on the name for their contact information.

Reporting a health and/or safety concern

Every worker is obligated by law to inform the site supervisor (the school principal) of anything that appears to be a health and/or safety hazard at work.

To do this, you may provide a verbal report to your Principal. Always complete the Occupational Health and Safety Concern/ Near Miss Form and submit it to your Principal, whether you have reported the issue verbally, or not. This Form is our only evidence of health and safety concerns raised by Members, and provides the required paper trail for the Ministry of Labour should the Ministry need to be contacted directly.

To access the form online, sign in to the TDSB website as follows: TDSB.ca>Staff sign in>Employee Services>Occupational Health and Safety and print off a copy. You can also use the fillable PDF or Word version available on the OSSTF Toronto website. At this time the form can only be submitted as a hard copy, or as an email attachment.

Once you have completed the Form, submit it to your Principal. TTBU Members should also send a copy to their Executive Officer.

Checklist to be completed

Attached is the Special Health and Safety Checklist developed by Provincial OSSTF.  Please share it with your colleagues who were unable to attend last night’s meeting.  

All Members, TTBU, OTBU and PSSP, should complete it and return it to District Occupational Health and Safety Officer Michael Platt via mplatt@osstftoronto.ca  

In the subject line please put Health & Safety Checklist.

We will use the returned checklists to determine whether the OSSTF Occupational Health and Safety Inspectors need to follow up.

Accessing child care

On January 12, 2021, the Province announced that it would extend the remote learning period in the City of Toronto until February 9, 2021 to help mitigate further community spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Emergency child care for kindergarten and school-aged children of eligible essential workers is available during the provincially-mandated remote learning period of January 4 to February 9, 2021. The service is free and funded by the Province of Ontario.

Emergency child care services are reserved exclusively for children of essential service workers identified in the Province’s List of Workers Eligible for Emergency Child Care which includes education staff who are required to attend schools to provide in-person instruction and support to students with special education needs who cannot be accommodated through remote learning. The safest option for families is to have children remain at home, if possible. 

Eligible families may apply directly with any of these Provincially-approved child care providers. If you are eligible and in need of emergency child care, please contact the child care provider directly.

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