Ontario to introduce education contract today to avert looming support staff strike

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Published October 31, 2022 at 7:17 am

The Canadian Union of Public Employees says its approximately 55,000 education workers will stage a provincewide protest Friday, meaning they will be off the job despite the Ontario government tabling legislation to impose contracts and ban a strike.

Laura Walton, president of CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions, says whether workers continue to protest after Friday “will be left up to what happens.”

Ontario introduced legislation today to impose a contract on education workers and avert a strike that was set to start Friday.

CUPE has said they will explore every avenue to fight the bill, but the government says it intends to use the notwithstanding clause to keep the eventual law in force despite any constitutional challenges.

The clause allows the legislature to override portions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for a five-year term.

The government had been offering raises of two per cent a year for workers making less than $40,000 and 1.25 per cent for all others, and the education minister says the new deal would give 2.5 per cent annual raises to workers making less than $43,000 and 1.5 per cent raises for all others.

“Students are finally back in class catching up, following two years of pandemic disruptions. We are disappointed that CUPE is refusing to compromise on their demand for a nearly 50 per cent increase in compensation, representing a price tag close to $19-billion if extended across the sector,” said Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education, in a statement.

“CUPE has now made the decision to strike, putting their own self interest ahead of Ontario’s nearly two million children, who deserve to stay in class learning. We are delivering on our promise to parents that our government will do whatever it takes to keep students in class, so they can catch up and get back to the basics of learning.”

The OSBCU, which represents 55,000 CUPE education workers in Ontario, says that a “line has been drawn.

“We will not allow our rights to be legislated away. They may have a majority in the legislature. We have a majority across the province. We will take a stand and do everything we can to defend workers’ rights and to defend public education,” the organization wrote on Twitter.

“Legislation uses the ‘Not Withstanding Clause’ on the Charter & Human Rights Code This was never about Education Workers. This was about stripping away the rights of workers in Ontario. The line is drawn.”

The Canadian Press

With files from insauga.com

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