OSSTF District 11- Thames Valley
Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation

680 Industrial Road, London, Ontario, N5V 1V1
Phone: (519) 659-6588; Fax: (519) 659-2421; Email: osstf11@execulink.com

While three OSSTF District 11 contracts are now signed, ratified and in place, bargaining for two other groups continues.

On August 31, 2004, all but one of the OSSTF District 11 contracts expired. Briefs had already been prepared for the Secondary Teachers,  Continuing Education Teachers, Occasional Teachers, and Continuing Education Instructors, and of those groups, the contract for the Continuing Education Teachers has yet to be completed. On August 31, 2005, the contract for the Professional Student Services Personnel bargaining unit expired; negotiations for this group began earlier this year and continues with several more dates scheduled over the next few months.

Throughout the 2004-2005 school year, bargaining took place for the Secondary Teachers,  Continuing Education Teachers, Occasional Teachers, and Continuing Education Instructors. In January 2005, every OSSTF bargaining unit in the province without a contract was placed into "provincial responsibility for negotiations" as a means to put pressure on the the boards and the provincial government to amend the funding formula to properly fund public education. Ultimately, by May, a provincial "framework" was developed and by the end of June, all of the teachers' bargaining units in the province settled. In District 11-Thames Valley, the Secondary Teachers were the first to reach a tentative agreement, on June 6. The following October, the negotiations for the Occasional Teachers were concluded. Most recently, the Continuing Education Instructors' negotiations were successfully completed.

Of the groups whose contracts expired on August 31, 2004, the contract for the Continuing Education Teachers has yet to be settled. Although this group is actually part of the Teachers' Bargaining Unit, because there was still information that we needed to have concerning the funding for adult Continuing Education, and because the government's report on their review of adult education was anticipated to be released shortly, the Board and the Union agreed to wait for that information before concluding that part of the contract in order to be able to get the best deal possible for that group. We have since had one bargaining date, and have another date scheduled.

Of greatest concern to this group is the wide discrepancy in pay and working conditions between Secondary Teachers and the Continuing Education Teachers. Although both groups teach exactly the same courses, because the previous government slashed funding of adult credit programs by over 70%, many boards opted not to continue offering adult day school credit programs, and of those that did continue, including Thames Valley, many adopted policies that required these programs to be self-supporting. As a result, the Teachers of the adult day school credit program became hourly paid employees with working conditions far inferior to those of Secondary Teachers. 

Although with each successive contract, we have made improvements, it is still of great concern that this group is treated significantly differently just because they happen to work in an adult day school credit program. This is not the case for any other employee group: the Principal, Vice-principal, secretaries, custodians, and every other employee who works in the adult credit day schools, EXCEPT the Teachers themselves, make exactly the same money and have the same working conditions and benefits as their counterparts in secondary schools. This is a significant issue and one that we are hoping to address over time, however, because adult day school credit programs are unlikely ever to be fully funded again, we must find other ways to bring in funding in order be able to significantly improve the circumstances for this employee group. This is no small task and one which may take years to develop, but in the meantime, the negotiating team will do its best to reach the best collective agreement possible at this time.