Local secondary school teachers hope they are sending a clear message to the government by voting 97 per cent in favour of strike action.
That's even higher than the provincial result of 95.5 per cent.
The OSSTF represents the teachers and occasional teachers in the Near North District School Board.
"My members are very frustrated with the lack of progress in negotiations," Glen Hodgson, President, District 4, told BayToday. "But they are very strong as you can see by the results. They are resolved they are going to stand up for public education."
The strike vote does not mean that teachers will be going on strike and negotiators continue to work towards a deal with the government. However, a strike mandate does give the union and its members the option of instituting strike action.
A strike would affect 350 members locally.
Hodgson isn't optimistic a deal is near.
"The government has only managed to negotiate with us a total of 29 minutes in the last two days. They don't seem to be interested remotely in trying to get a deal to stabilize public education, so I'm a little pessimistic right now because the government seems to have very little interest in working together to get a fair deal."
Dave Weichel, Chief Negotiator of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation says he's pleased with the results of the vote here but not surprised. “Our members have already seen the drastic impact of cuts to education and we know that they are going to get even worse in the next two years and we will not let that happen.”
Teachers and occasional teachers in the province have been without a deal since the beginning of the school year.
In addition to provincial concerns, teachers at the local level will be seeking, among other things, to clarify job security and create language to ensure transparency when dealing with staffing issues.
“We have taken the unprecedented step of releasing all of our provincial positions to the public so they can see what we are asking and understand that what we want is a deal that will protect our public educations system and support our students and communities in the Near North,” added Hodgson. “And locally we want to make sure we create a staffing process that will protect our members and their families so we can avoid the turmoil that we encountered in the Near North this past spring.”
Read the teacher's position here.
"I don't know if they (government) have a plan," added Hodgson. "I can't make any sense of what they are doing. They are doing a lot of press conferences but very little actual negotiating."
