The struggle of Ontario education workers against the Ford government has challenged the Fédération du personnel de soutien scolaire (FPSS-CQQ), the only union in Quebec representing exclusively school support personnel, as the latter begins its negotiations with Quebec. Ontario imposed contracts on staff using the notwithstanding clause, before changing its mind after a wave of protests mounted.
Éric Pronovost, the president of the FPSS, is challenged by the modus operandi of Ontario. “We hope that Legault will not retain Ford’s way of doing things since it is not a way to negotiate”, denounces the Quebec union leader. The union leader says he is touched by the cause of Ontario educators. “These people were experiencing what we had experienced during the last negotiation: the willful ignorance of the government,” says Éric Pronovost.
The use of the derogatory clause to settle the labor dispute was synonymous with “attack on poor people” laments Éric Pronovost. Ontario educators in the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) have an average salary of $39,000, while that of FPSS members is around $26,000 79% of members would make less than $39,000 a year, believes the FPSS. “Who thought of using the clause? asks Eric Pronovost. “We want to show who is the strongest. Can we change this way of doing things? he continues.
In October, the FPSS presented these demands to the Legault government, which will respond with a counter-offer in December. The group representing some 36,500 secretaries, clerks and computer technicians — jobs similar to those of Ontario’s support staff targeted by Bill 18 — wants a raise of $100 per week worked in 2023 or a pay raise corresponding to the increase in the consumer price index, plus 2%.
The president of the FPSS maintains that these demands are “very reasonable given all that we have not received over the years”, an argument also put forward by CUPE, which represents the 55,000 employees of the education sector initially affected by the Ontario government’s special law. Their salary has increased by only 8.5% since 2012 due to different provincial laws.
Similar issues
According to Éric Pronovost, members of the FPSS and those of the Ontario School Board Council of Unions — the CUPE-affiliated group that represents education workers in Ontario — face similar issues, such as job insecurity employment. Many positions, he says, offer only seven to ten hours of work per week. In Ontario, by contrast, 51% of respondents to a recent Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU) survey said they had a second job to make ends meet.
Under the contract imposed by the Ontario government, CUPE members would have been entitled to a wage increase of 1.5% per year for four years if their annual salary was equal to or greater than $43,000 or if the highest hourly rate high of the salary grid for their position was over $25.95. On the other hand, employees whose salary conditions were lower than these two figures would have obtained an increase of 2.5% per year.
Nearly half of Ontario’s 55,000 school support workers earn less than $25.95 an hour, according to CUPE researcher Daniel Crow. Many of them, however, would not have received a 2.5% increase even if they made less than $25.95 an hour since the highest level of their salary grid was above $25.95. $. In total, 60% of union members would only have been eligible for the 1.5% increase, estimates Daniel Crow.
The Ontario government’s offer did not sit well with Laura Walton, president of the CSCSO. The unionist was campaigning for increases by a fixed amount of $3.25 an hour during each year of the collective agreement. The idea joined the FPSS. “What we like about their fight is that they decided on a specific amount,” comments FPSS communications advisor Martin Cayouette. “Cash increases have a bigger impact than workers with lower incomes,” he says.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.