First I like your show Mr. Jack, though I frequently disagree with your positions. I enjoy having my views challenged. In this situation there are a couple things that you may not be aware of. Negotiations are a two way conversation and this was anything but. It was a request to sign on the dotted line. To say you lost is to suggest that a anytime the employer makes demands and then imposes them on their employee's that it was just a lost negotiation. The government had a political agenda of getting tough on teachers to try to win a majority. If they had just offered what they offered the Colleges there wouldn't have been a fight to show how far right the Liberals are willing to go to win your vote. Teachers would have signed that contract and the media focus would have stayed on Ornge etc. and other ways the Liberal have wasted tax dollars.
You mention that the Catholic Teachers Union negotiated an agreement but that would mean putting infront of your members and voting on it. This didn't happen. 5 out of 9 members of the OECTA leadership voted for this under the vailed threat that perhaps the existence of Catholic Boards were on the line. This is not a negotiated settlement this is anything but. Now the government has passed Bill 115 and given the minister of education incredible powers and prevented the unions from negotiating with their employers, denied us our right to strike and continue to lie about this being about wages in the media.
All of this is a shame and a poor position for the government to take because the union was willing to find ways to help the government reach it's financial goals while trying to maintain certain benefits, including the banking of sick days which I know people in the pubic generally dislike. There is little understanding of the reality that teachers take an average of 7 sick days a year and the private sector takes 6.6 days. This might be an argument for another time but banking days reduces use and saves the province money. Reducing a liability (sick days that were never going to be used does not save the tax player money) but it does make the libs look like their being tough on teachers. The union infact offered the government ways that would actually reduce the education budget by 500million in the public secondary sector alone. These were not explored and were rejected because the government refused to negoticate and thus the unions walked away from a table where we were told, sign or we will legislate.