THE HISTORY OF TEACHERS’ UNIONS IN ONTARIO

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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.
10In the end, the percentage of salaries being contributed to the pensions remained thesame, and teachers received better pensions in the long run. 30The teacher shortage finally came to an end in 1969 when, for the first time inthirty years, some graduates of teacher’s colleges were not able to find work. In thedecade that followed, the previous shortage of teachers developed into a teacher surplus:“The economic upheaval caused by the oil crisis of the mid 70’s had its effect on Canadaat a time when the population “bulge” of the baby boom era was about to reach the workforce. One of the professions most affected by these two conditions was teaching.” 31These conditions contributed to the shrinking of the job market and disproportionatenumber of graduates, forcing the OTF to create new policies to protect its existingmembers from unfair hiring and firing procedures. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Educationplayed a minimal role in reacting to the large pool of qualified teacher candidates. 32In the midst of the multitude of societal issues that characterized the 1970s, thepublic began to look at schools critically and expect them to solve all of society’sproblems. To dealwith the surplus ofteachers, marriedfemale teachers wereonce again pressuredto leave their jobs,Image 5: Teachers’ annual salaries varied depending on gender; nonetheless,salaries saw a natural increase in 1976.hoping to resolve the issue of too many unemployed teachers. It was at this point that theteachers’ unions adopted a more militant approach to bargaining. This change was “an30 Stasios, The Ontario Teacher's Federation at Forty, 40.31 Ibid, 42.32 Ibid, 36.
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Page 5 and 6: 4The Ontario Public School Male Tea
Page 7 and 8: 6members also desired the raising o
Page 9: 8large majority of teachers in the
Page 13 and 14: 12teachers to assert their rights.
Page 15 and 16: 14In the fall of 1973, having reach
Page 17 and 18: 16We were all called to take the da
Page 19 and 20: 18The Immediate Aftermath: Conseque
Page 21: 20agreement in early bargaining sta
Page 24 and 25: 23which allowed teachers to strike.
Page 26 and 27: 25Annotated BibliographyAlbert, Rod
Page 28 and 29: 27Hanson, Andy. “Achieving the Ri
Page 30 and 31: 29Reid, Matthew. “Teachers launch
Page 32: 31Image 2: “Crowd gathered outsid

THE HISTORY OF TEACHERS’ UNIONS IN ONTARIO

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