Demystifying The 2023 Teacher Strike - With M.T.A. President Lori Newton

Something very big is happening next week in the world of public sector education in Quebec. Montreal’s largest service centre, the Centre de Service Scolaire de Montreal, will be closed for an indefinite period of time as of Tuesday, November 21st, as thousands of teachers go on strike. The same is true for the English Montreal School Board, with the exception of F.A.C.E. school. Some would call this current strike historic – the last teacher’s strike on a similar scale occurred in 1982.   In this episode of Talking TESL, we’ll be taking a deeper dive into the current teachers strike. We are joined by Lori Newton, President of the Montreal Teachers Association, which is the union representing all teachers working for the English Montreal School Board. This is Lori’s second time on the podcast – in her first episode she discussed unions more broadly. This time we're discussing the current strike: what conditions led to it, what are the demands, and what is the current status.