School Boards Rotating Strikes
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) may all engage in job action over the coming weeks that result in a withdrawal of services, on a rotating basis across different school boards. While these rotating strikes are not a certainty, we would like to ensure that leaders are informed and feel prepared as many employees have school-age children or children who attend school-based child care centres.
As a leader, you may receive requests from employees in any of our various employee groups for a flexible work arrangement for child care reasons. Wherever operationally feasible you are encouraged to help facilitate these requests. How you handle the time off that is granted for this purpose may differ in accordance with the applicable collective agreement and employment contract. Flexible work arrangements during this time period may include an adjustment to an employee’s start and/or finish time or allowing the employee to work from home (if possible). An employee can arrange to make up the time a variety of ways, such as working extra hours over a defined period of time, using paid vacation or personal days or using banked compensating time off (where applicable).
While McMaster wants to be flexible to these requests employees are not encouraged to bring their children into the workplace, as per Risk Management Manual policy #113 – Children in the Workplace.
Should you have any questions or require support on how to handle a request from an employee, please reach out to your Employee/Labour Relations Representative.
Things to Know, TMG