Ontario’s English public elementary and high school teachers will receive nearly 12 per cent in wage increases over a four-year contract, an arbitrator ruled on Wednesday.
The province reached deals on new contracts with all its teachers’ unions in recent months, but all parties agreed that compensation would be decided by a third-party arbitrator.
In a decision released on Wednesday, arbitrator William Kaplan awarded salary increases of 11.25 per cent over the four-year term that began in the 2022-23 school year – an 11.73 per cent increase when compounded over the four years.
This represents increases of 3 per cent for the 2022-23 academic year, 3 per cent for 2023-24, 2.75 per cent for 2024-25 and 2.5 per cent for 2025-26.
The wage increases apply to members of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF). The two other teachers’ unions – the Ontario Catholic Teachers’ Association and Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens – are still in arbitration.
“Having successfully reached central agreements with all education unions, our government has delivered stability and peace that keeps kids in class learning without the threat of interruption,” Education Minister Stephen Lecce said in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday.
“We recommended this process to ensure students remain in class learning, which is exactly what we have achieved.”
ETFO and OSSTF said on Wednesday that the arbitration decision represented the highest percentage increase that teachers have received over the term of a contract in more than a decade.
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Karen Brown, president of ETFO, said the arbitrator’s decision highlighted the government’s failure to recognize and fairly compensate educators.
“This compensation award should have been achieved at the bargaining table,” Ms. Brown said. “Instead of coming together to reach a fair and reasonable agreement, the Ford government was intent on devaluing our members, who are already facing increased violence, insufficient supports for students with special needs, heavy workloads and burnout.”
Karen Littlewood, president of OSSTF, said that while the wage increases don’t keep up with the rate of inflation, they are higher than what the government offered at the bargaining table.
“We should have been able to reach this agreement at the bargaining table but we never had a fair bargaining partner with the Ford government,” Ms. Littlewood said. “We were forced to choose an alternative pathway with an arbitrator.”