THE HISTORY OF TEACHERS’ UNIONS IN ONTARIO

9salaries, the tired curriculum – all the matters which teachers had complained about foryears – were suddenly the focus of national attention.” 26Although a new decade began, the same issues continued to exist in the 1960s –teachers’ unions were still battling for “higher salaries, higher standards, and higherstatus.” 27 The increasedstudent enrollment thatresulted from the baby boomImage 4: Teachers’ annual salaries still remained significantlybelow other professionals in 1960.continued, and thegovernment finally began tospend money on schools by building larger institutions to house the students. In addition,the curriculum became a topic of discussion, and the OTF played an influential role in itsreformation, by generating and promoting new ideas within related governmentcommittees, projects, and meetings. 28 One of the major catalysts to change curricula andthe approach to teaching was the Hall-Dennis report (published as Living and Learning),which steered schools in a new direction. The approach presented in this report wasdescribed as a “child-centred continuous program of learning by discovery, which wouldbring the child to realization of his full potential.” 29 Concurrently, at the forefront of theteachers’ unions’ concerns was superannuation and the creation of the Canadian PensionPlan (CPP). The unions wondered how the CPP would affect their current teachers’ fund.26 Dear Teacher, 32.27 Ibid, 40.28 Ibid, 30.29 Ibid, 39.