Ford government can prevent teacher strikes in Ontario with relatively simple fix

Ontario students will soon head back to school. At least we hope they do.

Unfortunately, there’s a real possibility of a teacher strike this fall because the current contract expires at the end of August and talks between the Ford government and teacher unions have reached an impasse over the split of bargaining. The Ford government wants most issues, including staffing, negotiated centrally while the unions want more bargaining to take place at the local school board level. Until this question is resolved, the two sides can’t even begin talking about bigger issues including salaries. So a strike looms.

Far from a minor inconvenience, extended school closures are bad for students. We saw this clearly during the pandemic when the Ford government closed schools for 135 days, longer than any other province. Some of the documented harms from extended school closures include increased mental health issues and lower academic achievement. Given the many days of school missed due to the pandemic and previous teacher strikes, the Ford government should do everything it can to prevent another strike. Fortunately, there’s a relatively simple way to solve this problem.

In short, declare education an essential service and mandate that all unresolved collective bargaining disputes be dealt with through binding arbitration. This way a neutral arbitrator or panel will hear both sides and decide based on the evidence presented to them.

Some unionized professions already operate this way. For example, police officers cannot go on strike, even though they are unionized. Instead of walking off the job every time they reach an impasse at the bargaining table, unresolved issues are settled through arbitration while police officers continue their regular work. The public doesn’t even notice the difference since there are no service disruptions.

If the Ford government wants to know what binding arbitration would look like for teachers, it can simply look east to Manitoba. Teachers in that province voluntarily gave up the right to strike back in the 1950s in exchange for unresolved disputes being settled through binding arbitration.

As a result, Manitoba students never have to worry about being locked out of class. Teachers keep on teaching while their union representatives negotiate a collective agreement. If the two sides reach an impasse, unresolved issues go to binding arbitration. At no point are students or parents impacted. Interestingly, Manitoba teacher salaries and benefits are similar to what Ontario teachers receive. So clearly, strikes are not necessary to ensure teachers receive a competitive wage.

In addition, binding arbitration can address more than salary disputes. We saw this in Saskatchewan last year when the thorny issue of “classroom complexity” (the increasing number of special needs students in regular classrooms) was sent to arbitration after a series of intermittent teacher strikes and work-to-rule action failed to resolve the issue. After hearing all the evidence, the arbitration board’s final decision required the province to create a special fund to help schools deal with this issue.

Of course, it would have been even better if Saskatchewan had skipped the year-long labour disruptions and gone straight to binding arbitration. That way students could have avoided the uncertainty that comes from the ongoing threat of teacher strikes.

There’s no need for students to pay the price for unresolved labour disputes. The Ford government should implement binding arbitration so students and parents never again have to worry about teachers going on strike.