Class Action: How Ontario’s Elementary Teachers Became a Political Force will be released and available for sale on 15 September 2021 at Between the Lines publishing.
https://btlbooks.com/book/class-action
Or at Indigo to pre-order: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/class-action-how-ontarios-elementary/9781771135689-item.html
“Late in the 2019-20 school year, the members of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) joined the other teachers’ unions on work-to-rule restrictions and a series of rotating strikes. The teachers were opposed to the Doug ford Progressive Conservative government’s cuts to the education budget and a legislated 1 per cent on salary increases…
Interestingly, prior to 1998, elementary teachers had belonged to two unions that were constantly at odds with each other. Both had salary and working conditions well behind those of their secondary peers.
How did those people, whose job it is to educate children to become good citizens become the front line of union activism? What happened to turn elementary teachers into a political force in Ontario? How did elementary teachers come to join the vanguard of resistance to the neo-liberal turn in government policy?” (p. xi)
So begins the story of the elementary teachers of Ontario and the 80-year history of their two unions: the women’s union, the Federation of Women Teachers’ Associations of Ontario (FWTAO) and the men’s union, the Ontario Public School Teachers’ Federation (OPSTF). This book examines why the women wanted to keep their own union and why the men were opposed to that idea. It looks how the two unions fought side by side in their labour battles and in their campaigns against the rise of neo-liberalism .
Then, in 1998, in the heat of the struggle against the Mike Harris Progressive Conservative government, the FWTAO and the OPSTF united to form the ETFO. The book explains how and why that amalgamation took place.
“Class Action is a deeply researched and historically contextualized account of the rise of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario. A must-read for anyone interested in the education system, the labour and women’s movements, and contemporary politics.” (Bryan Palmer, co-author, Toronto’s Poor: A Rebellious History)
I can be reached at andyh1949@gmail.com to arrange presentations.
Class Action 