‘We’re not going to back down,’ teachers union rep says (7 photos)

Sault and area teachers, along with other educational workers, gathered and walked through the downtown core Friday for a large scale rally to protest the Ontario government’s education policies.

The current labour dispute has included several one-day strikes throughout the winter, both province-wide and on a rotating basis.

With Sault and area schools closed for the day, teachers and support staff, represented by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA), gathered at Mill Square in the morning, walked along Queen Street East and gathered outside Sault MPP Ross Romano’s constituency office at 390 Bay St.

From there, the group planned to bus its way to Great Northern Road to join teachers and other educational workers, represented by the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO), intending to get their message out along the sidewalks.

Teachers across Ontario are opposed to the government’s plans for increased class sizes, mandatory e-learning for high school students, the workers also wanting a guarantee of full-day kindergarten and more classroom safety.

Teachers and other educational workers also want a two per cent per year salary increase, whereas the government is standing at one per cent.

“I hope we get a fair collective agreement but we’re going to keep up the pressure on the government... until we get the government to move. We’ll continue to try our best to make the least impact on kids in the schools. We’ll see how it goes,” said John Wells, District 2 Algoma OSSTF president, speaking to SooToday.

“We’re not going to back down,” Wells said.

Educational assistants (EAs), clerical and technical workers and noon hour aides were among other union-represented educational workers at the rally.  

“We are the ones the kids see first thing in the morning, the ones they see when they leave home... if they start increasing class sizes, the violence in the schools is going to increase. We have EAs that are getting beaten up on a regular basis,” said Liz Tassone, OSSTF educational support staff president.

The day’s events were part of a province-wide, one day strike by teachers and other educational workers.

Billed as the largest protest rally of all Sault and area educational workers since 1997, union officials were anticipating approximately 1,200 workers to take part in Friday’s labour action.

They joined approximately 200,000 teachers and education workers, across 72 school boards in Ontario, the one day strike affecting nearly 5,000 schools across the province.