The Ontario School Board Council of Unions, OSBCU, representing over 57,000 education workers in more than 60 locals across Ontario, are urging the Ford government and Education Minister Paul Calandra to begin collective bargaining with unions as soon as possible, as severe underfunding and chronic staffing shortages continue to harm students and education workers across Ontario.
“There can be no ‘business as usual’ while education workers and students bear the brunt of chronic underfunding,” said Joe Tigani, President of the OSBCU. “Early bargaining is critical to stabilizing our schools and addressing the staffing crisis before it becomes even more severe.”
CUPE-OSBCU is urging the government to come to the bargaining table prepared to increase staffing at all schools in the province to improve supports for students and provide necessary improvements to publicly funded and publicly delivered education in Ontario.
School boards are already warning CUPE locals that thousands of education workers could be laid off for September 2026 following the expiry of the current collective agreement in August. These potential cuts come at a time when schools are already struggling to meet students’ needs due to years of inadequate funding and understaffing.
According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives the Ford government has underfunded public education by $6.3 billion. The OSBCU calculates that per-pupil funding has been cut by $1.4 billion in the 2025-2026 school year alone. CUPE education workers in Ontario are currently working the equivalent of 1,355.5 Full-Time Equivalent, FTE, jobs worth of unpaid work while 96% of CUPE Educational Assistants and Child and Youth Workers in Ontario experience violent or disruptive incidents in their workplace. 55% of these workers say violent incidents occur every day.
Despite government claims about “historic funding” for schools, student to staff ratios have not improved since the Ford Conservative government took office in 2018. In fact, for some job classifications, student to staff ratios are worse now than in 2018.
The OSBCU is ready to go to the bargaining table at any time. Early bargaining is essential to provide certainty for students, parents, and education workers — and to prevent yet another school year marked by a crisis of underfunding and understaffing of public education. Minister Calandra can issue a regulation to allow bargaining to start up to 180 days before the expiry of the current agreement at the end of August — as early as the beginning of March.