THUNDER BAY — About 400 public elementary school teachers in Thunder Bay are meeting to decide whether to give their union's bargaining team a strike mandate.
Local members of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario were scheduled to gather late Tuesday afternoon to start casting ballots.
Across Ontario, other public elementary teachers union chapters will gather on various dates through Oct. 17 to complete the voting process.
It's widely expected that when the results are announced later this month, a majority will have voted in favour of a walkout.
Dave Paddington, the president of the Lakehead Elementary Teachers of Ontario, said that doesn't necessarily mean a strike would be called, but it would be an indication that teachers are frustrated with the pace of negotiations provincially.
In an interview Tuesday, he charged that the government is "dragging their feet, offering an extremely inappropriate wage increase, and ignoring pleas to deal with issues like violence in the classroom and workload issues."
Paddington accused the province of "stonewalling" at the bargaining table, and said teachers are losing patience.
"I want to be optimistic. Teachers don't want to walk the picket lines, don't want to limit opportunities at schools, don't want to step away from the job that they've chosen. But at some point you have to stand up for yourself."
The last collective agreement expired in August 2022.
Members of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association will hold their own strike vote electronically on Oct. 18 and 19.
The province is also still negotiating with the union representing French-language teachers and with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation.
Members of the OSSTF recently voted 78 per cent in favour of a binding arbitration process, which means there will be no strikes or lockouts, and any items not agreed to by Oct. 27 will be sent to arbitration.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce has called on the other teacher unions to agree to reach a deal as well.
"Nothing should matter more than students being in class and benefiting from uninterrupted learning for the next three years, with an enhanced focus on reading, writing and math," the minister said last week in a statement.
