Elementary school teachers, custodians and other education support workers face having their pay docked if they fail to reach contract settlements by Nov. 1.

Premier Kathleen Wynne on Friday read the riot act to the education unions that have yet to conclude agreements with schools boards.

“Children’s lives are being negatively affected. This has got to stop,” said Wynne, flanked by Education Minister Liz Sandals.

The premier has given the unions eight days to negotiate accords and stop their continuing work-to-rule protests that have left schools filthy and banned teachers from writing report card comments, meeting with parents to talk about student progress, taking kids on field trips, or doing any professional development.

If the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario, and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) do not agree, the government would grant a request from the school boards, Wynne said, “to respond to the ongoing strike action.”

That would empower the boards to issue a five-day warning that their unionized employees will be penalized for not doing their jobs.

“After that notice period of five days, management could respond to the withdrawal of services with a commensurate reduction in pay or other changes in the terms of employment,” Wynne warned.

The premier, who also defended the controversial payment of $2.5 million to three education unions to defray bargaining costs, stressed that completing fall progress report cards would be considered part of a teacher’s job.

Her comments came after she summoned ETFO president Sam Hammond, CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn and OSSTF president Paul Elliott to her Queen’s Park office.

After the one-hour meeting, the premier, a former mediator, noted deals have already been reached with OSSTF teachers, although not with its support workers, as well as Catholic and French-language teachers.

“I don’t want to have a public conflict. Eight days is a very long time in negotiating. I hope we can reach a deal.”

Hammond, whose union is escalating its job action by having teachers stop extracurricular activities next Wednesday, said his negotiators are ready to return to the bargaining table as soon as possible.

“My members aren’t going to respond to threats. We’re going to bargain and hopefully we can get a deal,” he said, stressing ETFO would not cancel its escalated strike action.

“It’s not about being angry; it’s about trying to get to an end-game here in terms of a negotiated agreement.”

As part of the job action, ETFO teachers are also not going on field trips or submitting any comments for the upcoming fall progress reports — which has left many boards to delay and possibly cancel them — but can continue helping with breakfast clubs and participating in Remembrance Day ceremonies.

Hahn said his CUPE Ontario members are also ready to bargain.

“Arbitrary dates and threats do not actually help in the bargaining process,” he said.

“I’ll tell you, if there’s eight days left, they better be available every last one of those eight days to bargain with our members to get a fair agreement.”

New Democrat MPP Lisa Gretzky (Windsor West) predicted “(Friday’s) threat from the premier carries a real risk of creating more chaos in our schools."

Elliott, whose teacher members have already settled their contract, said OSSTF support workers will be back at the negotiating table on Monday.

“What we heard today really wasn’t just a message to us, but it was also a message that went out to the school boards,” the OSSTF president said, adding the $1-million payment his union got from the government to cover some of its bargaining costs “is always something that’s there.”

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“It’s part of the process. It’s been part of the process as long as I’ve been doing (this) and there’s really nothing new that I’ve seen.”

The $1-million payments to the OSSTF and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association and a payment of $500,000 to AEFO, the French-language teachers’ union, are to offset hotel and meeting-room rentals, but the government has not asked the federations for receipts or invoices.

Since 2008, the government has given various education unions — including CUPE Ontario, which represents support staff in Ontario schools — $3,741,000 to cover bargaining costs.

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown said Wynne’s gambit Friday was “a distraction” to deflect attention from the payouts to the unions that have supported her Liberals electorally for years.

“The government’s trying to do a diversion right now because they’re embarrassed by what they got caught on this week,” said Brown.

“They got caught with these $2.5-million payments to teacher unions. They knew that it’s being widely decried around the province in every talk-radio (show), in every newspaper and TV show,” he said.

Michael Barrett, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, said employers have the right, under the new bargaining legislation as well as longstanding labour relations laws, to “alter the terms and conditions of a collective agreement” once the current one has expired.

He was not aware of it being requested by Ontario school boards in recent history.

However, British Columbia teachers were docked 10 per cent of their pay in 2014 after they began holding one-day rotating strikes during a protracted labour dispute.

Barrett said Ontario’s four school board associations have discussed this option for some time, but “only came to this point out of frustration from the public and parents, since we are not seeing a successful resolution” to the labour dispute.

“We recognize that this applies pressure to the central table, but no less pressure than bargaining units withdrawing services and the potential of not having report cards or extracurricular activities,” he added.

Docking pay is an option, and the most common one, but anything in the contract could be altered.

“We are obviously not going to take any actions that are going to impact the focus on our students,” Barrett said. “Our primary focus is to make sure that we get a deal . . . we are still hopeful we can get a deal in eight days.”

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