Skip to main content

Liberal rush to rule out free collective bargaining doesn't add up

The Ontario Liberal government has largely justified its rush to prevent free collective bargaining in the education sector by claiming that without such legislation junior teachers will get their normal increment steps on the wage grid as they accrue more experience as teachers.  To wit, they argue:

"Current teacher and support staff agreements expire on Aug. 31, 2012. If these are not replaced by September 1, the terms of existing contracts will automatically roll over. If this were to happen, the cost for teachers moving up the grid and for continuing the existing retirement gratuity and sick leave provisions would be $473 million."

This is curious as the government actually agreed to allow the increment increases in its memorandum of understanding with the catholic teachers association - albeit on the 97th day of the school year.

The trade-off loss of three days professional development pay does not occur until well into 2013 and 2014: October 11, 2013, December 20, 2013, and March 7, 2014.

That's a long way away.  In other words the government won't get that cost saving for a long time yet.

So what's the rush?

Is it just to get the sick leave concession?  That's unlikely, as, absent the establishment by school boards of a third party adjudication process, teachers will still get paid at 90% for absences over 10 days.  (Local agreements haven't even been agreed to, never mind the establishment of this other 3rd party process.)

By-election politics sounds like a more credible answer for all the haste.
Labels:

Comments

  1. susansmithAugust 20, 2012 at 11:03 PM

    no kidding - this govt lies badly and is "praying" the public is stupid

    ReplyDelete
  2. DeryckMonsourAugust 21, 2012 at 8:49 AM

    does 97 school days put us into the next fiscal year??? looks better on their by-election budget lines

    ReplyDelete
  3. LeftwordsAugust 21, 2012 at 10:01 AM

    The provine's fiscal year begins April 1, long after the 97th day. So I don't know what the advantage is for the government, other than a modest delay .

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 11, 2012 at 11:42 AM

    The Fiscal-Year-End is an oddity. The provincial government's FYE is March 31st (as Doug Allan has posted).

    I believe that Municipalities are based on the calendar year, although I'm not sure if each municipality can set its own FYE.

    The relevance of municipalities is that the local school boards are the direct employer of teachers, not the province.

    Based on day 1 being September 4th, 97 days into the school year would land on December 10th. Which is an odd day, since school winter breaks can't possibly start that early.

    There might be some sort of accounting advantage to picking day 97, but it's likely a compromise date between the unions and the province/boards.

    ReplyDelete
  5. LeftwordsSeptember 11, 2012 at 12:10 PM

    Interesting. I have heard that the 97th day is half way through the school year, so it may be a compromise as you suggest.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ford government fails to respond to 72% increase in COVID inpatient days, deepening the capacity crisis

COVID infections continue to drive up hospital costs and inpatient hospitalizations in Ontario. For the most recent fiscal year (April 1, 2022- March 31, 2023) hospital stays related to COVID cost $1.221 billion, according to new CIHI data.   This is about 4% of total hospital spending, creating a very significant new cost pressure beyond the usual pressures of population growth, aging, inflation, and rising utilization.   Costs for COVID related hospitalizations increased 22.2% in Ontario in 2022/23 from the previous fiscal year, rising from $999 million to $1.221 billion.  That rise is particularly notable as the OMICRON spike of late 2021 and early 2022 had passed by the the 2022/23 fiscal year.   The $222 million increase in COVID hospitalization costs came in the same year as the Ford government cut special COVID funding and, in fact, cut total hospital funding by $156 million.     In total, there were 60,653 COVID hospitalizations...
Post a Comment
Read more

The hospital crisis: No capacity, no plan, no end

While Canada has achieved universal public healthcare coverage, that does not mean conservative forces have given up trying to erode that coverage and expand corporate care where it does not currently exist. The battle has become particularly intense in Ontario under the Ford Progressive Conservative government, which is implementing serious cuts to the level of care and moving to bring in for-profit mini-hospitals. Inadequate Staffing.   Less and less of hospital spending is on staff.   Employee compensation as a share of hospital expenditures has consistently shrunk in Ontario. This is not some immutable law of hospital development.  It is in stark contrast with the rest of Canada, where compensation has become a larger share and now accounts for 67.1%. Hospitals in provinces other than Ontario now have 18 percent more staff per capita than hospitals in Ontario. Overall, if Ontario had the same staffing capacity as the other provinces and territories, there would be another...
Post a Comment
Read more

Paramedic Services in Canada: Structure, Privatization, Unionization and other issues

Governance and Funding :  While police and fire services are usually municipal services, Emergency Medical Services (EMS) are typically controlled by provincial governments.  In Ontario, regional municipal governments have responsibility for delivering and funding EMS.  But even in Ontario the province plays a key role, strictly regulating EMS, providing funding for 50% of the approved land ambulance costs, and paying 100% of the approved costs for air ambulance, dispatch, base hospitals, First Nation EMS, and for territories without municipal government. Delivery :  Like police and fire services, EMS is predominantly a publicly provided service in Canada.   But businesses have now made some significant in-roads into EMS, primarily  Medavie,  a private corporation based in the Maritimes that describes itself as not-for-profit.  Medavie goes back over 70 years, with its roots in health insurance.  It still operates Medav...
Post a Comment
Read more