ETFO’s Collective Bargaining 

Campaign

The 2014 round of collective bargaining for ETFO 
was going to be different on two accounts. 

The School Boards Collective Bargaining Act, 2014, 
or Bill 122, mandated a system of two-tiered 
collective bargaining in the education sector to 
include central bargaining (provincial) and local 
bargaining. ETFO would have two central tables: 
one for negotiating central items for teachers and 
occasional teachers; and another for negotiating 
central items for education support workers. This 
was also the first time that the Ontario Public 
School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) would be a 
party at central table discussions. 

Long before ETFO’s collective agreements expired 
on August 31, 2014, the Federation had worked 
with members to develop collective bargaining 
(CB) goals.

In early September, ETFO launched a CB 
Communication’s campaign called Our Union Our 
Values Our Profession. The Our Union campaign 
has continued to inform, educate, engage and 
mobilize members about the goals established by 
ETFO for the 2014 round of collective bargaining, 
as well as about bargaining-related events. The 
campaign’s photos and visuals highlight ETFO 
members - the ‘faces of our union’. The campaign 
features a specialized collective bargaining web-
site at www.etfocb.ca, a CB eNewsletter with over 
65,000 member subscribers, bargaining bulletins, 

print resources, social media shareables, but-
tons, t-shirts and a CB app.

As the year unfolded, ETFO and its members 
championed teacher working conditions and 
student learning conditions, and stood up for 
issues involving class size, self-directed prepa-
ration time, supervision time, teachers’ ability 
to exercise their professional judgement in the 
classroom and fair hiring practices. 

Central Strike Vote

ETFO held an all-member central strike vote in 
late November with very strong participation.

Members voted 95% in favour of taking strike 
action if necessary to back up ETFO’s call for 
meaningful central table bargaining. An exten-

PROTECTING OUR PROFESSION

ELEMENTARY TEACHERS’ FEDERATION OF ONTARIO

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Photo: Vitusha Oberoi