VANCOUVER—Ontario’s Doug Ford and B.C.’s John Horgan lead two very different provincial governments, but this fall find themselves in the midst of similar battles: Teachers are refusing to back down on funding demands during high-pressure negotiations, saying reasonable class sizes for students are at stake.

And as things heat up, the unions representing teachers from both provinces are boosting each other’s fights — posting supportive messages and sharing information that could help with bargaining efforts.

Teacher negotiations have come to a boiling point this week in Ontario. Public secondary teachers are prepared to walk out Wednesday, for one day, to pressure the provincial government to back down on increasing class sizes and implementing mandatory online courses for high school students.

But while Ontario teachers gear up to protest proposed Progressive Conservative cuts, B.C. teachers are trying to get the NDP government in this province to cough up funding levels closer to what Ontario already has.

B.C. teachers, whose most recent contract expired last June, protested outside the B.C. NDP Convention in Victoria last weekend after rejecting a deal they say leaves the province’s education system underfunded by hundreds of dollars per student compared to the national average. Their fight could escalate into job action like that planned in Ontario.

“We’re definitely feeling empathy for our colleagues in Ontario,” said Teri Mooring, president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation in an interview with Star Vancouver Tuesday. “Increasing the class sizes — what the Ford government is looking at doing — we went through the years where our collective agreement was stripped.”

The unions have been sharing information back and forth through their connection with the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, Mooring said.

That includes information about funding models — Ontario has a “prevalence” model of determining appropriate staffing for classes with kids who have special needs, which is being considered by the government in B.C. Teachers in both provinces say the model results in fewer services for kids who need them.

Negotiations between teachers and the government in both provinces have been going on for months. The most recent agreement between the BCTF and B.C. expired last June, while the various education contracts in Ontario expired at the end of August.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation plans to update the public on its bargaining efforts at midnight Tuesday, in case a deal is reached and teachers do not walk off the job Wednesday.

Here’s where teachers in B.C. and Ontario stand right now:

On matters of money

Starting salaries for teachers are lower in both B.C. and Ontario than the national average. The typical starting salary in B.C. was $48,101 in 2014, and $51,263 in Ontario. The national average is $52,064.

The highest starting pay is in Alberta, at $59,488.

In Ontario, teachers top out at a salary of $94,612 after 10 years of service, while the number is $81,277 for teachers in B.C.

Ontario teachers are arguing for a salary increase in line with inflation at the bargaining table, which would be about two per cent per year.

A confidential bargaining memo obtained by Star Vancouver in August revealed the B.C. government has already offered teachers a salary increase greater than the standard two per cent per year for three years mandate the NDP government has implemented for all its public sector negotiations.

But the salary increases weren’t enough to persuade the BCTF’s bargaining committee to settle. The union also wants guarantees that class sizes will go down during the next contract period, and that appropriate staffing levels will be available for students with special needs.

Class size and composition

Bargaining on the issue of class sizes is not taken lightly in B.C. In a 2016 Supreme Court of Canada decision, the BCTF won the right to negotiate class size and composition for its members after the previous B.C. Liberal government had stripped that right through legislation.

Class sizes vary by school district in B.C. After the Supreme Court ruling, most BCTF locals negotiated maximum class size language into their contracts, but Mooring said several locals still don’t have class size language for grades 4-12.

In Ontario, teachers are trying to fend off cuts. The government initially proposed increasing average class sizes from 22 to 28 students, and requiring high school students to complete four credits online — a requirement unknown in any other North American jurisdiction. Education Minister Stephen Lecce has since committed to reducing the online course requirement to two credits, and the class size hike to 25 instead of 28.

The OSSTF has said any increase in class size would be a concession, and cost students attention from teachers.

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Funding

The teachers’ asks don’t come cheap. In order to get what they want on both class sizes and salaries, B.C. teachers say the government has to open its purse strings beyond its standard public sector bargaining mandate and commit to per-student funding on par with the national average.

A report by the conservative think tank the Fraser Institute pegged B.C.’s annual per-student spending in 2015/2016 at $11,656, one of only three provinces (the others were Quebec and P.E.I.) to spend less than the national average per student on education, and $1,665 less per year than Ontario’s spending. An objective of the Ford government is to reign in some of that spending.

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