Thousands of public elementary school teachers will receive back pay under Bill 124, Global News has learned, after the union signed a tentative four-year agreement with the Ford government.
The new contract means the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) will receive two years of back pay, while the third year’s payment will be decided by arbitration.
Bill 124 – the Ford government’s controversial wage cap legislation – capped public sector wages at one per cent a year for three years.
The legislation was struck down as unconstitutional in 2022, triggering a series of renegotiations that allowed public sector unions to recoup lost wages over the three-year period, costing the province billions of dollars.
According to the ETFO agreement, obtained and verified by Global News, teachers will receive a Bill 124 “remedy”:
The retroactive pay, according to an internal ETFO document, will boost teachers’ salaries above the one per cent increase educators received under Bill 124.
But the agreement also calls for a three-person arbitration panel to decide two key compensation issues:
Year Three of Bill 124. The award will give the union a minimum of 1.5 per cent and a maximum of 3.25 per cent.
Wage increases for the term of the four-year contract from September 2022 to August 2026.
As part of the negotiated agreement, the Ford government also agreed to create 401 full-time specialist teaching positions to support the province’s new Early Reading Screening Program.
The government issued a policy memo during the contract negotiations to create a new screening tool for students in kindergarten to Grade 3 to track their reading skills.
The programme would identify students who may be falling behind and help them with early intervention tools. ETFO said funding for new teachers would start in 2024.
The ETFO agreement still needs to be ratified by the union’s 80,000 members.