Ontario education workers took to the picket lines on Friday morning on the first day of an illegal strike, as the Minister of Education has already begun proceedings before the Labor Relations Board. Ontario work.
Education workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) were marching outside the offices of politicians, including hundreds outside the constituency office of the Minister of Education in Vaughan.
A large demonstration is also planned at the Legislative Assembly, where hundreds of people were already gathered on the lawn.
This is where the Progressive Conservative government on Thursday pushed through a law imposing labor contracts on 55,000 education workers and prohibiting them from striking. The law also uses the notwithstanding clause to protect against constitutional challenges.
CUPE says the law is an attack on the bargaining rights of all workers and is staging a strike anyway, warning it will likely last longer than a day.
Aaron Guppy, a janitor with the York Region District School Board, was picketing the office of Education Minister Stephen Lecce on Friday morning.
“If they take away our rights as a union, all the other unions will be next. They’re not going to stop just at us,” he said.
“We’re here to basically show that we’re not going to back down, we’re not going to accept this terrible deal. People support us. »
Hefty fines to come?
Minister Lecce announced that the government had filed an application with the Ontario Labor Relations Board after the law was passed Thursday evening and that the procedure continues on Friday.
The law provides daily fines of up to $4,000 per employee for violating a strike ban, while fines of up to $500,000 are provided for the union.
CUPE plans to fight the fines, but ultimately the union has said if it has to pay, it will. CUPE leaders have previously hinted that the union is seeking outside financial help from other labor groups.
Many school boards across the province, including the Toronto District School Board, have said schools will be closed during a strike, while others plan to switch to remote learning. Many have yet to set plans for next week, should the strike last long.
The Ministry of Education has urged school boards to “implement contingency plans, where every effort is made to keep schools open to as many children as possible”. Otherwise, they should “support students in a rapid transition to remote learning”.
The government initially proposed increases of 2% a 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 2.5 % annual increases for workers earning less than $43,000 and 1.5% increase for all others.
But according to CUPE, this portrait is not entirely accurate, because the increases depend on hourly wages and salary scales, so the majority of workers who earn less than $43,000 a year would not get 2, 5%.
CUPE says its workers, who earn an average of $39,000 a year, are generally the lowest paid in schools. Annual salary increases of 11.7% had been requested.