OPSEU/SEFPO education workers are stepping up their fight for public education after securing their first-ever dedicated bargaining table for 8,500 members in school boards across the province.
OPSEU/SEFPO issued formal notice to bargain to the provincial government on June 3.
Earlier this week, OPSEU/SEFPO joined a united front with Ontario’s largest education unions at a press conference on Wednesday to put the Ford government on notice.
Contracts for over 255,000 teachers and education workers are set to expire on August 31, 2026.
Union leaders called on the provincial government to come to the bargaining table without delay to address the crisis of underfunding in Ontario’s public school system.
OPSEU/SEFPO President JP Hornick and Sector 3 Bargaining Team Chair Kelly Martin attended in solidarity alongside leaders from the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA), L’Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO), the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU), and Education Workers’ Alliance of Ontario (EWAO).
ETFO, OSSTF, OECTA, AEFO, and OSBCU also delivered notice to bargain to the provincial government on June 3.
“The current funding formula for special education is completely inadequate. We are facing understaffing, unsustainable workloads, program cuts, and rising violence in our classrooms,” said Martin.
“There are students sitting at home rather than in schools because there is not enough funding for Educational Assistants. Education workers are overworked and burnout is a huge problem.”
“Workers, parents, and students all know that Ontario cannot continue through another year of underfunding, understaffing, and instability,” said Hornick.
“We are committed to working together with all education workers in order to win fair agreements and defend our publicly funded education system.”
