TORONTO — Ontario’s public elementary school teachers have accepted the province’s final contract offer.
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario had been given a deadline of 4 p.m. today to either accept or reject the four-year, $700-million deal.
Earlier, Premier Dalton McGuinty had urged the federation — the largest teachers’ union in Canada — to avert a potential strike by accepting the offer.
The province set two other deadlines with the teachers in recent months, but those came and went with no deal in sight.
Education Minister Kathleen Wynne had said if teachers didn’t accept this last offer, they would be stuck with a two-year deal worth much less.
About 750,000 students would have been affected if the 73,000 teachers and education workers walked off the job.
Wynne made the new offer to teachers and school boards on Tuesday, but gave them only two days to decide whether to accept it.
The proposal gives teachers a 10.4 per cent salary increase over four years, bringing the maximum salary to $92,700.
The deal also includes money for more preparation time, improved benefits and hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes, Wynne said.
The school boards readily accepted the deal, but the union said it was outraged by Wynne’s threats and deadlines.
The province and elementary teachers had been butting heads over a new contract since last summer, when the union walked away from the negotiating table.
A teachers’ strike would have been a major blow to the Liberal government, which boasts about bringing labour peace to the province’s schools after eight years of strife under their Conservative predecessors.
