Bargaining 101 #9—What is a tentative agreement?

Once the parties to bargaining have settled on all items to be bargained, a tentative agreement (a “deal”) has been reached. Although there is an agreement in principle by all parties, we refer to it as tentative because it must still be ratified (made officially valid) by the Members that the respective bargaining agents represent.

Typically, the tentative agreement is established by the signing of a “Memorandum of Settlement” (MOS) by the parties at the bargaining table, which sets out the entire tentative agreement at the end of negotiations. The MOS serves as a bridge between the old collective agreement and the new one and has the force of a collective agreement until the new agreement can be produced.

The MOS sets out all agreed upon changes to the existing collective agreement. It also makes provisions for matters which must be dealt with immediately, such as the conditions for returning to work after a strike, timelines and process for ratification, the responsibilities of the parties to recommend the terms of the new agreement, and any agreements related to the implementation of its terms.

Once a tentative agreement is reached, the Union typically holds a general information meeting, explains the provisions of the tentative deal, and then have the Members cast a secret ballot on whether they accept the terms of the agreement.

It is important to clarify that, because of the central/local split for those bargaining under the SBCBA, there are two tentative agreements to be reached—one local and one central—although the two eventually are combined to comprise a single, consolidated collective agreement for each Bargaining Unit.

Voting on behalf of the union, for both the local and central tentative agreement, is by the membership. For clarity, education worker members would vote for a central education worker tentative agreement, while teacher and occasional teacher members would vote on a central teacher/occasional teacher tentative agreement.  Each local bargaining unit member would vote on their respective local tentative agreement. 

The central tentative agreement would be voted on by CODE, for the OSSTF/FEESO teacher/occasional teacher tentative agreement, referenced as the “employers’ association” in Bill 101. While the OSSTF/FEESO education worker tentative agreement would be voted on by CODE along with the two French-language school board associations, ACÉPO (Association des conseils scolaires des écoles publiques de l’Ontario) and AFOCSC (Association franco-ontarienne des conseils scolaires catholiques). 

For English-language school boards, local tentative agreements would be ratified by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). French-language district school boards will not see a change and local agreements will be ratified by the trustees for each board.