Canadian Labour Reporter

established a two-tiered bargain- ing scheme. That meant trustee associa- tions and school boards (such as the Ontario Public School Boards' Association) were to join unions and the government at the table. Whereas school boards and unions would negotiate local contract issues, the government would handle any provincewide provisions. Under the centralized model, all three parties needed to sup- port a contract before it could be ratified. System takes a toll That created difficulty for this round of negotiations, according to the teacher unions. Negotiations under the two- tiered system took a toll on both the government and unions, with both parties admitting challenges. In particular, unions said the bargaining process should be re- vamped before the next round of negotiations in order to ensure efficiency. "The Ontario government cre- ated and passed the legislation that has led to this long and cum- bersome bargaining process," said president of the Ontario Second- ary School Teachers' Federation Paul Elliott. And because some of the three- year contracts that were negoti- ated are retroactive and expire in 2017, teachers could be back at the bargaining table sooner than one might think, he said. "This round of bargaining has been exceptionally lengthy and difficult but in the end we achieved a tentative agreement that the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario believes is fair and meets the needs of our members," echoed Sam Ham- mond, ETFO's president. ETFO members had been without a con- tract for 14 months. The new system also took a toll on the employer. "Central and local negotiations have been difficult, and we never expected otherwise. We knew that reaching a negotiated settle- ment, in our current fiscal cli- mate, would be challenging," said Ontario's education minister Liz Sandals in a statement. "Negotiations were challeng- ing for all sides, but it speaks to the dedication and commitment of everyone involved that collabo- ration prevailed and a tentative agreement was reached." Failing grade from lawyer Were he to assign the new two- tiered bargaining system a grade, labour and employment lawyer Howard Levitt in Toronto said he would mark down a B minus "be- cause it caused the labour board hearing, strikes all over the place, expectations of strikes — some of which didn't happen, but some of which did — and caused dis- location and parents having to find alternative arrangements for their children, even anticipa- torily." He added the two-tiered sys- tem essentially opened the job action floodgates, making strikes the choice route on two differ- ent levels as opposed to just one, therefore further muddling the process. "There were potential strikes on two potential fronts rather than just one, and a real confusion to some extent as to what is a lo- cal versus a provincewide issue," he said. A so-called local issue, in many instances, is in reality an issue that could concern other schools (and is therefore a provincial issue), or they are so minutely localized it would be tedious and almost irrel- evant to discuss at the bargaining table, said Levitt. "The whole system made no sense." A better bargaining system would be a return to the old meth- od. Levitt went so far as to say that not permitting strikes would be the ideal rubric, though he noted the education sector does not play well into essential services legisla- tion. In such a scenario, both par- ties would undergo mandatory arbitration. "It's not an appropriate model for strikes," Levitt said, adding that the intention of any strike — to hurt the employer on some level — is lost when it comes to public sector schools. "You're striking against the par- ty who is your workplace partner, and if you strike them too hard and run them out of business, you're hurting your own mem- bership. In other words, there is market discipline," he said. "As is generally the case in the public service, there is no market discipline at all because you're not striking against your bargain- ing partner, you're not striking against the school boards — the people who are affected are the parents." Bargaining chips Ontario also came under fire for providing funds — nearly $4 mil- lion in total — to the teachers' unions to cover the cost of nego- tiations, including among other things, money for pizza. While the province has main- tained this is not unusual, Levitt said other employee groups and unions could come asking for something similar. He called the funding "abso- lutely scandalous" and said he has never come across such a case of a government employer paying a public service union for negotia- tions. The move could set a prec- edent for other government employers, such as those in the health-care or policing industries, he said. Voting on the various tentative contracts will occur this month. 7 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2015 CANADIAN LABOUR REPORTER NEWS < from pg. 1 Payout to unions for bargaining 'scandalous': Lawyer Photo: Jon Blacker (Reuters) Ontario's education minister, Liz Sandals, raised eyebrows when she said a multimillion-dollar payout to unions for bargaining was 'not unusual.'

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