Minister of Education Stephen Lecce says he has meetings with the three remaining teacher unions scheduled in hopes they will follow suit with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation.
Last week, the Ministry of Education reached a tentative agreement with the OSSTF. As part of that agreement, both sides agreed to continue bargaining until October 27 and any unresolved issues after that date would be sent to binding arbitration.
"This tentative framework allows us to demonstrate to parents that we are going to negotiate, we're going to work hard but we're going to put the welfare and the interests of their kids first by ensuring that we have a plan to defer outstanding issues, should we need to, to an interest arbitration system," said Lecce.
Members of the OSSTF will vote on the proposal next month.
At a news conference Monday, Lecce said he is meeting with two unions this week and one union next week to present similar offers.
"We are going to make the case, and we hope that they will take us up on this offer and get this deal done as soon as possible so we can move forward with predictability for families, that their kids are going to be in school for three straight years of uninterrupted learning," said Lecce.
The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO), the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA), and the French-language teachers' union issued a joint statement Friday evening. They all stated that binding arbitration is not something they could consider.
