A landmark decision by the Ontario Labour Relations Board has ruled the elementary teachers’ union waged an unlawful strike in two school boards by encouraging an after-school boycott when it was not in a legal strike position.

The ruling could prevent future use of the sort of wink-wink work-to-rule campaign that cancelled extracurricular activities for most of the school year for 1.3 million students across the province’s public English-language schools.

“This is a very big deal — it represents a precedent that school board lawyers will take into consideration across the province,” noted education lawyer Eric Roher hours after the Wednesday ruling.

While labour board chair Bernard Fishbein stressed extracurriculars are always voluntary — no one can force any teacher to coach — he said that by advising all members to stop doing everything from field trips to plays, clubs and even pizza lunches, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) actually advised illegal strike action under the Education Act because it interfered with the normal activities of schools and school boards.

“By encouraging members to no longer perform any of these activities, ETFO (was) interfering with the normal activities of a board — these activities have been routinely offered for long periods of time,” said Fishbein in the 75-page finding issued eight weeks after arguments ended in the case launched by two school boards.

The Trillium Lakelands District School Board in cottage country and the Upper Canada District School Board in eastern Ontario had sought a cease-and-desist order against ETFO bulletins last January that advised members to stop doing anything other than teach the required 300 minutes a day to protest the imposition of contracts under Bill 115.

Fishbein noted that he had been ready to release his ruling March 26 when ETFO suddenly lifted its boycott because of progress in talks with the government of new Premier Kathleen Wynne.

However, he said he felt he still needed to rule because the fuzzy legal status of the after-school boycott “has bedevilled teacher labour relations in this province and others for decades . . . ETFO has not asserted that it will not resort to this conduct again . . . Accordingly, I am not convinced there is no labour relations purpose to issuing this decision.”

On Wednesday, ETFO President Sam Hammond said his members will honour the ruling, although the union has said it intends to challenge it on the grounds that the Education Act definition of a strike restricts a teacher’s right to freedom of association under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Added Hammond: “You can’t legislate goodwill. There is no other profession where people are expected to perform hours and hours of voluntary service each week, and then are castigated for making personal decisions to put their principles, their families, and their own welfare first.”

Education Minister Liz Sandals said the government is reviewing the decision but her focus remains on “our ongoing discussions with ETFO and rebuilding relationships across the sector.”

ETFO lawyer Howard Goldblatt said he has no reason to believe Fishbein’s ruling would interfere with the ongoing talks between Queen’s Park and ETFO.

Already some teachers are returning to extracurriculars.

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For now, the ruling has removed a “black cloud of uncertainty that has been hanging over this issue, because we didn’t know where we stood,” said Trillium Lakelands chair Karen Round. “This was never meant to be an anti-union move; we don’t want to mandate teachers to do extracurriculars but it was meant to be pro-student. We have lost many activities we can never get back this year.”

The ruling doesn’t stop individual teachers from choosing not to coach, noted Michael Barrett, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, “but as a group, they just can’t use this as a collective peacetime action.”