That'll teach you to collectively bargain

For a long time the collective bargaining regime has been based on the assumption that a union and employer are two equals meeting in the marketplace each able to pursue their own ends. Dad Dalton has blown this assumption out of the water with his and his governments conduct over the last couple of weeks. The provinces teachers, bargaining on behalf of their members have been bombarded with threats of legislated wage freezes and back to work legislation since the beginning of summer. The government seems like they want to play hard ball with their employees, except one thing: Teachers do not work for the provincial government. Teachers work for the various school boards throughout Ontario.

So the government is surely stepping in to the fray to help the school boards? No. In fact the presidents of 3 employer organizations representing trustees, supervisors and principals wrote jointly to the Toronto Star:
“We collectively call upon the government to cease negotiating unilaterally with our employee groups; to provide boards and unions the chance to discuss their respective concerns freely and outside of the memorandum of understanding’s parameters; and to discontinue the public threats aimed at all partners in education that serve no purpose whatsoever”
Dalton’s crap goes beyond bad faith bargaining with teachers, this is bad faith treatment of other elected officials. And the officials that are being mistreated are the officials we elected to take care of school finances, the school trustees. Other than being not helpful in attempting to broker a solution Dalton is putting up obstacles and deadlines to complicate talks.

I guess I just don’t understand. It didn’t seem very likely the teachers would strike at the beginning of the school year without a strike vote (cause…. you know… that is.. um.. illegal) and Dalton decided to try and provoke them while disrespecting the authority of school trustees. Now it seems like the teachers have a gun to their head and they will either concede to government demands or be forced to strike illegally.

So much for two parties in a marketplace; the talks between the teachers and the boards are being hampered by government action and now both parties are powerless to act legally in their own interests. Sure the government gets a sound bite and some news that doesn’t mention Ornge but at the end of the day it would be better to continue negotiating with the teachers or at least let the boards continue negotiating. Nice thing about minority governments – we have a chance to change our minds.