‘We need our voices heard’: Ontario education workers walk off the job as strike begins

Thousands of Ontario education workers picketed Friday on the first day of an indefinite walkout that has closed schools across the province, after the government passed legislation controversial law imposing a contract and making any strike action illegal.

School board workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) were protesting outside politicians’ offices, including hundreds of members outside Queen’s Park and the Education Minister’s constituency office in Vaughan, in Ontario. Members of other unions also joined the picketers.

On Thursday, the Progressive Conservative government signed into law Bill 28, a law that imposed contracts on 55,000 CUPE members and banned them from striking. The law also uses the notwithstanding clause to protect against constitutional challenges — a legal mechanism that has been used only twice in Ontario history, both times by Premier Doug Ford’s governments.

CUPE says the law is an attack on the bargaining rights of all workers and is staging a walkout anyway, warning it will last until the government repeals the bill.

Aaron Guppy, a custodian with the York Region District School Board, was picketing the office of Education Minister Stephen Lecce.

“If they take away our rights as a union, all the other unions are next. They’re not going to stop at us alone,” he said.

“We’re just here to show that we’re not going to back down, we’re not going to take this terrible deal. People are supporting us,” Guppy said.

Maria Gallant, a school secretary, was at Queen’s Park this morning. She told CBC News the strike may be illegal after the government passed Bill 28, but CUPE members had no choice but to take action.

“We are here because we have the right to strike and we have the 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 simply asking to be paid what we deserve, nothing more.”

The government appeals to the labor commission

Bill 28 provides for fines of up to $4,000 per employee per day for violations of a strike ban during the term of the agreement, while fines of up to $500,000 are provided for the union.

Lecce suggested the government would indeed pursue those sanctions, 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 in the end the union has said that if it has to pay, it will pay. CUPE leaders have previously hinted that the union is seeking outside financial help from other labor groups.

In a statement released early Friday, Lecce said the department had already filed a complaint with the Ontario Labor Relations Board in response to the “unlawful strike action.”

He reiterated that the government will “use all available tools” to get students back into classrooms.

Fred Hahn, president of CUPE Ontario, called Friday’s action a “political protest.”

“If they want to say that strikes are illegal, let them understand that people still have the right to demonstrate for their rights, to demand better from our government. A government that is sitting with a $2.1 billion surplus, a government refusing to really invest in our schools,” Hahn said.

Many school boards across the province, including the Toronto District School Board and most boards in Eastern Ontariosaid schools would be closed during a strike, while others plan to switch to remote learning.

The Department for Education has urged school boards to “implement contingency plans, where every effort is made to keep schools open to as many children as possible” and otherwise “must support students in a rapid transition to remote learning”.

LISTEN | The construction union that backed Ford says it has “buyer’s remorse”:

Speaking to CBC News, Hahn stressed that CUPE would return to bargaining “in the blink of an eye” if the government repeals Bill 28 and said none of the union members wanted to be on strike. He also appealed directly to parents who may be frustrated after two years of pandemic-related learning disruptions.

“I remind them that none of our fellow citizens want to do this, that we have been pushed into a corner by a government that has stripped us of our rights,” Hahn said.

“I remind them that it’s not just about keeping kids in school, because schools are just buildings. It’s about the people in those schools.”

CUPE members lowest paid education workers: union

The government initially proposed increases of 2% per year for workers earning less than $40,000 and 1.25% for everyone else, but Lecce said the new imposed four-year deal would grant annual increases of 2 .5% to workers earning less than $43,000 and 1.5% increase for all others.

CUPE said the framing is not precise because the increases actually depend on hourly wages and pay scales, so the majority of workers who earn less than $43,000 a year would not get 2.5% .

CUPE said its workers, who earn an average of $39,000 a year, are generally the lowest paid in schools and have asked for annual wage increases of 11.7%.

The union said it had cut its wage proposal by more than half in a counter offer it delivered to the government on Tuesday night and had also taken “substantial” action in other areas. However, the government has said it will not negotiate unless CUPE calls off the strike.

WATCH | CUPE leadership challenges MPs as they vote on Bill 28:

Ford skips final vote on education worker strike ban bill

Supporters of Ontario education workers demonstrated in the gallery of the provincial legislature on Thursday, just moments after Premier Doug Ford missed the final vote to pass legislation making the 55-year strike illegal. 000 education workers and imposing a contract on them.