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Teachers Protest to Hit Central PS

Wednesday, 19 December 2012 10:06

Local elementary teachers will be walking off the job, and onto the picket lines tomorrow. In Woodstock, all teachers will join in on a mass rally downtown at Central Public School. President of the Thames Valley local of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario, Phillip Mack says it will be a display of solidarity against Bill 115. "Basically it will be all the teachers in Woodstock in one location. We'll also be taking part in some sort of recognition of Ernie Hardeman, in the sense that he was one of the PC members that voted in favour of this bill. And we're very upset obviously with the bill itself and the content of it." The ETFO says Bill 115 strips teachers unions of their right to collective bargaining. It also places a 2-year wage freeze on education workers, would take away their right to strike, and cut benefits. Teachers say the implications of the bill goes farther than the teachers themselves, and goes against fundamentals of the Labour Relations Act and Human Rights Code. Mack says parents, for the most part, have been understanding, and some even supportive of the cause, and have asked how they can join in the protest. "This is not to be punitive against parents or students, it really is to demonstrate what we find to be a really troubling bill that has implications on parents and students in the future that we've never seen before." The one-day strike across Thames Valley Elementary schools will be just the latest in a series of 1-day walkouts across the province.

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