TORONTO — Peel, Durham Region and Rainbow District school boards are filing a joint application to the Ontario Labour Relations Board in an attempt to end ongoing strikes which have kept thousands of secondary students out of class for weeks.
Peel District School Board announced the application to declare the strike unlawful in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
“The three boards believe the local strikes currently underway have been undertaken over matters being negotiated at the central table between the provincial government, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association and provincial OSSTF, and that this is not permissible under new bargaining legislation.”
READ MORE: Teachers on strike at Rainbow District secondary school in Sudbury
The PDSB said many of the matters at hand are outside of the control of the school boards.
“We’ve seen secondary teachers in each of the three boards protest issues being negotiated at the central table, particularly the central matter of class size,” said Janet McDougald, chair of the Peel board. “Our teachers need to know, and our parents and students need to know, that there is nothing we can do at our local table to impact class size decisions—nothing.”
READ MORE: ‘It’s just unfair for students’: Durham Region teachers strike
The strike in Peel began May 4, while teachers in Durham Region and Rainbow District, which encompasses Sudbury and surrounding areas, have been walking the picket since April 20.
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