Education workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) picketed politicians’ offices, including hundreds outside the education minister’s election office in Vaughan, Ont., along with a large protest planned for the legislature, where hundreds of people were already gathered on the lawn. There, a day earlier, the Progressive Conservative government passed Bill 28, a law that imposed contracts on CUPE’s 55,000 members and prohibited them from striking. The law also uses the non-applicability clause to protect against constitutional challenges — a legal mechanism that has only been used twice in Ontario’s history, both times by the governments of Premier Doug Ford. But CUPE says the law is an attack on all workers’ bargaining rights and is going on strike anyway, warning it will likely last more than a day. Aaron Guppy, a superintendent with the York Region School Board, picketed outside Education Minister Stephen Lecce’s office Friday morning. “If they take away our rights as a union, every other union is next. They’re not going to stop at us,” he said. Members of several other unions joined CUPE members on picket lines this morning. “We’re here to basically show that we’re not going to back down, we’re not going to accept this terrible deal. The people are behind us,” Guppy said. CUPE members and supporters gather outside Queen’s Park on November 4, 2022. (Linda Ward/CBC) Maria Gallant, school secretary, was at Queen’s Park first thing this morning. He told CBC News that the strike may be illegal after the government passed Bill 28, but CUPE members had no choice but to take action. “We’re here because we have a right to strike and we have a right to negotiate our contract,” Gallant said. “We need our voices to be heard and the government to realize that this is not acceptable… We are just asking to be paid what we deserve, nothing more.”
The government appeals to the works council
Bill 28 sets fines for violating a strike ban for the duration of the agreement up to $4,000 per worker per day, with fines of up to $500,000 for the union. Lecce suggested the government would indeed pursue those penalties, while the union said it would foot the bill for fines imposed on workers, which could cost up to $220 million a day. For its part, CUPE plans to fight the fines, but at the end of the day, the union said if it has to pay, it will. CUPE leaders have previously suggested the union is seeking outside financial help from other labor groups. In a statement issued early Friday, Lecce said the ministry has already filed with the Ontario Labor Relations Board in response to the “illegal strike.” He reiterated that the government “will use every tool available” to get students back into classrooms. CUPE members protest outside the constituency office of Ottawa-area MPP Lisa MacLeod on November 4, 2022. (Francis Ferland/CBC/Radio-Canada) Fred Hahn, president of CUPE Ontario, called Friday’s action a “political protest.” “If they want to say that the strikes are illegal, they need to understand that people still have the right to protest for their rights, to demand better from our government. A government that’s sitting on a $2.1 billion surplus, a government refusing to really invest in our schools,” Khan said. Many school boards across the province, including the Toronto District School Board and most boards in eastern Ontario, have said schools will be closed during the strike, while others plan to move to distance learning. The Department for Education urged school boards to “implement contingency plans where every effort is made to keep schools open for as many children as possible” and otherwise “must support students in a quick transition to distance education”. LISTEN | Manufacturing union that endorsed Ford says it has ‘buyer’s remorse’: Metro Morning8:08 Will Ford Government’s Anti-Strike Legislation ‘Unleash the Labor Giant?’ Karen Littlewood, President of the Ontario Federation of Secondary Education Teachers, and Mike Gallagher, director of operations for the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 793 discuss the implications of the Ford government’s anti-strike law and the use of the void clause. Speaking to CBC News, Khan stressed that CUPE would return to bargaining “in a heartbeat” if the government scraps Bill 28, and said none of the union’s members want to strike. He also appealed directly to parents who may be frustrated after two years of pandemic-related learning disruptions. “I will remind them that none of our people want to do this, that we have been forced into a corner by a government that has taken away our rights,” Khan said. “I would remind them that it’s not just about keeping kids in schools, because schools are just buildings. It’s for the people in these schools.”
CUPE members with the lowest paid teachers: union
The government initially offered raises of two percent a year for workers making less than $40,000 and 1.25 percent for everyone else, but Lecce said the new, mandated four-year deal would give 2.5 percent annual raises to workers with less than $43,000 and 1.5 percent raises for everyone else. CUPE said the framework is not accurate because the increases actually depend on hourly wages and pay scales, so the majority of workers earning less than $43,000 in a year would not get 2.5 percent. CUPE said its workers, who make an average of $39,000 a year, are generally the lowest paid in schools and were asking for annual wage increases of 11.7 percent. The union said it had more than halved its wage proposal in a counteroffer it gave the government on Tuesday night and made “substantial” moves in other areas as well. But the government said it would not negotiate unless CUPE called off the strike. WATCHES | CUPE leadership harangues MPPs as they vote on Bill 28:
Ford skips final vote on bill banning strike by education workers
Supporters of Ontario’s education workers demonstrated in the gallery of the provincial legislature Thursday, moments after Premier Doug Ford lost a final vote on legislation that would make it illegal for 55,000 teachers to strike and contract them.
