TORONTO — Ontario’s English Catholic teachers will take a strike vote November 12 and 13 after central bargaining with Queen’s Park failed to get past the opening stage. The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) told members Monday the vote is meant to force “meaningful progress,” and that information meetings will precede the ballot so members can “deliver a strong strike mandate.”President René Jansen in de Wal said a mandate is not a strike. Most labour disputes, he has argued, still settle without one. The association represents about 45,000 teachers in publicly funded English Catholic schools from kindergarten to Grade 12.Central agreements covering more than 255,000 teachers and education workers expired August 31. Schools opened on schedule September 8 under the old terms after Education Minister Paul Calandra said the expired contracts would be honoured..Talks across the major unions are largely frozen while the Ontario Labour Relations Board decides which items belong at the provincial table and which stay with local boards. The unions say Calandra is trying to pull local working conditions into the central sphere, while Queen’s Park says it wants one set of talks and certainty for parents.OECTA had been the last large affiliate still engaged in central discussions after the others went to the board. Monday’s message is the first firm strike-vote calendar from that table.A successful mandate does not put teachers on a picket line. Ontario law still requires conciliation and a no-board report before any legal job action, plus notice. The union’s own pitch is leverage: show the government the membership will back a fight if the table stays empty.Other education unions have already booked a province-wide day of action for September 16. That date now sits two days from this announcement and two months before the Catholic ballot.
