Ontario education minister says $1M payout to teachers' union 'not unusual'

TORONTO -- It's not unusual for the province to help cover teacher unions' bargaining costs, Ontario's education minister said Wednesday, but beyond defending a $1-million payout to the secondary teachers' union, Liz Sandals wouldn't say how much the government has spent.

The Globe and Mail reported that the government agreed to pay the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation to compensate the union for the cost of negotiations because they went on so long under the province's new bargaining system.

"I don't think of it as compensation per se," Sandals said after question period. "I think of it as investing in transforming a system that didn't work."

This year's talks with teachers and support staff unions were the first under the Liberals' new, two-tier bargaining system, under which the unions negotiate central deals with the province, then local issues deals are hammered out with the union locals and school boards.

It was a "very long process," Sandals said. It took six months alone for the parties to work out which issues would be central and which would be local.

That meant all parties incurred "quite extraordinary costs" such as renting rooms in which to bargain, she said.

"It will never happen again because we're never going to have to figure out every clause in every collective agreement again," Sandals said.

In fact, the government has also made extra payments to the school boards because of the same costs. While those have been made as transfer payments, Sandals couldn't say what amount had been paid to the school boards.

Nor would she say what amount was paid to the other unions, since the province is still in bargaining with the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario and support staff unions.

"It really is not helpful in the context of negotiations to be dissecting one agreement while you're still trying to negotiate another," Sandals said.

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown said the government is taking money from students "to pay for their own mistakes" with its new bargaining system.

Deals were reached with OSSTF and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association this summer, and an agreement with the French teachers has now been ratified.

The deal with high school teachers included a one-per-cent lump sum payment this year and a one-per-cent raise as of Sept. 1, 2016, with another half per cent later.

The Liberal government said the deal was net zero, meaning the raises were offset by finding savings elsewhere.

The Globe reported that the government was able to fund those raises by diverting money from a fund for special programs that help struggling students graduate.

Sandals said that was "simply not true." In 2012 the government agreed with the unions to defer the final year of the special teacher hiring program to 2014, but since the graduation rate has gone up everyone agreed it could be cancelled, Sandals said.