Education Minister Stephen Lecce preemptively tabled legislation Monday afternoon that would “end any ongoing strike” by the Canadian Union of Public Employees and instead impose a new four-year collective agreement on the roughly 55,000 members represented by the union. But at a news conference held in Queen’s Park after the Keeping Students in Schools Act was tabled, CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn promised that school support staff still plan to walk off the job Friday as part of a day of protest . It remains unclear at this point whether the planned job action will continue on Monday. Asked about the possibility of an extended wildcat strike, CUPE Ontario School Board union council president Laura Walton would only say “it’s up to what happens.” CUPE represents around 55,000 school support staff, including custodians, nursery teachers, teaching assistants and administrative staff “On Friday, regardless of what this legislation says, our members will participate in a protest across the province. This means that no CUPE teachers will be at work. Instead, we will take a stand for public education for us and for our future,” Hahn said. “Our union and others were effective in challenging governments in court and we won, but too late for workers. Enough is enough. We may actually challenge this in court, but we will challenge it in our communities first. We are not going to allow our rights to be legislated.” The move to introduce back-to-work legislation comes a day after CUPE provided the required five days’ notice to officially launch industrial action. While CUPE has vowed to fight the legislation, the Ford government has indicated it will invoke the nullity clause to protect the bill from legal challenges. Speaking to reporters, Khan said the government’s intention not only to introduce back-to-work legislation but also to enforce a collective agreement was a “monstrous overreach” using the “heaviest hammer imaginable”. “They didn’t just prevent a strike, they didn’t just say ‘arbitrate with you,’ they write the collective agreement for the workers,” Hahn said. “You can’t do that and not face repercussions.”
EMPLOYEES WHO LEAVE JOB MAY BE FINED
If passed, the bill would allow fines to be levied against any person or bargaining firm that either participates in a strike or “authorizes or threatens to call or authorize a strike.” These fines amount to $4,000 for individuals. However, under the legislation, stiffer fines of up to $500,000 could be levied against the union itself. “There are consequences and we’ve shared them with our members, but I think there are also consequences for not fighting,” Walton said. “At what point do we as people in Ontario stand up and say enough is enough?” Workers represented by CUPE have been without a collective agreement since August 31 and despite several rounds of talks, a new one has yet to be negotiated. Among other things, CUPE wants an annual wage increase of $3.25/hour (11.7 percent), preschool teachers in every kindergarten classroom, five extra paid days before the start of the school year, 30 minutes of paid daily prep, an increase overtime and an investment of $100 million to create new jobs. The province’s latest offer, proposed in an emergency mediation session Sunday afternoon, is a four-year deal that includes a 2.5 percent annual raise for workers making less than $43,000 and a 1.5 percent annual raise for those making more. That’s up from their original offer of a two percent annual raise for workers making less than $40,000 and a 1.25 percent raise otherwise. “We increased our offer, we offered what I thought was fair enough and they (the union) went on strike,” Lecce told reporters during a press conference Monday afternoon. “If we didn’t introduce legislation now, this afternoon, there would be a strike on Friday. Think what these kids have been through. Talk to children’s hospitals and mental health wards. Isn’t it the government’s duty to defend them, to give them a voice, to ensure some continuity in their lives?” Lecce said the government would have preferred to have a “voluntary agreement” but felt back-to-work legislation was the only way to ensure students remained in classrooms after two years of pandemic disruption. Regarding the planned day of protest on Friday, the education minister said he hoped support workers would “do the right thing”. “I hope that common sense will prevail, that the interest of the children will prevail and that these workers will be in school on Friday,” he said.
LEGISLATOR TO MEET FOTEIN AND EARLY ON TUESDAY
House of Representatives Leader Paul Calandra said the legislature would begin sitting at 5 a.m. Tuesday in order to speed up passage of the bill. Hahn said that if the bill is actually signed into law before Friday and makes the strike illegal, members will simply be engaging in a “political protest.” Negotiations with the province’s other education unions are continuing, but the Federation of Primary Education Teachers canceled a scheduled bargaining session on Monday after the bill was tabled. “Throughout these days, ETFO could not, in good conscience, sit across the table from the government and so we ended negotiations for the day,” a union statement said. “In creating legislation that imposes a contract on CUPE members, the Ford government has chosen the most draconian way to legislate two fundamental rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike.”
