Still no answer from labour board on teachers' strike

The Ontario Labour Relations Board could make a decision this week as to whether the ongoing strike by Rainbow District School Board high school teachers is legal. That decision was expected, possibly, late last week as well.

Board spokesperson Nicole Charette said she only knows what she's read in national media that a decision could come as early as Thursday.

Rainbow District School Board — along with two other school boards where high school teachers are on strike — asked the labour relations board to declare the strike by Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation members “unlawful.”

The collective bargaining framework for the education sector, set out in the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act, 2014, features a two-tier bargaining process with a central table and local tables.

In accordance with the legislation, local strikes must be about local issues, said a press release from the Rainbow board.

“One of the misconceptions is that the board is attempting to increase class sizes, limit prep time and freeze salaries and benefits at the local table,” said Rainbow Board chair Doreen Dewar, in the press release.

The province has also tasked a group called the Education Relations Commission to determine whether the strikes in Sudbury, Durham and Peel put the school year in jeopardy.

But the Toronto Star reported Tuesday that Bernard Fishbein, who chairs the Education Relations Commission and the Ontario Labour Relations Board, will not participate in the panel that will decide whether or not the strikes place the school year in jeopardy.

Former commission chair Chris Albertyn will take charge of that panel.

“I have reflected a great deal over the weekend and although I do not believe there is a conflict, I appreciate there is a need for some urgency and I am fully aware of the number of students who are not in class (because of the strikes),” Fishbein told the Toronto Star.