Staff
OSSTF members “emphatically” has rejected the Rainy River District School Board’s offer of binding arbitration to settle its dispute, which has left local high school teachers without a contract for almost 20 months.
“Our local bargaining team has been trying for more than a year to achieve a negotiated settlement containing nothing more than the same provisions that have been agreed to in dozens of school boards around the province,” noted Kent Kowalski, president of OSSTF District 5B.
“The outstanding issues could easily be resolved through a few hours of serious bargaining, but we have been confronted with endless stall tactics on the part of a school board that seems prepared to do anything to avoid an agreement,” he charged.
“And now, rather than negotiate, the school board is publicly insisting that we refer the dispute to a lengthy and costly arbitration process–a process that could easily leave our members without a contract for several more months while costing both OSSTF and the taxpayers who fund the school board tens of thousands of dollars in legal and administrative fees,” Kowalski stressed.
He noted employing the arbitration process to resolve the few outstanding issues would be an excessive waste of time and money.
“And the end result would be an agreement that neither party would have agreed to or be satisfied with,” Kowalski reasoned.
“We are eager to resolve this dispute, and we call on the Rainy River District School Board to abandon their delay tactics, commit to serious negotiations, and return to the bargaining table.”
But board chair Dianne McCormack said the board is ready and willing to act in the interest of labour peace.
“We clearly need to have a neutral outside party impartially decide what is fair in order to bring back a peaceful, supportive environment for both staff and students,” she had said in an open letter to the OSSTF outlining the offer of binding arbitration.
The teachers have been engaged in a selective withdrawal of services since December, but increased their job action to include a full withdrawal of services—one day per week—at the end of April.
The teachers’ next planned strike action is slated for tomorrow (May 11).
As a result, district high schools will be closed for the day for the third time in as many weeks.
