By Morgan Sharp, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada’s National Observer
November 1, 2022
The Ontario government pre-emptively ordered the province’s lowest-paid education workers back to classrooms and school hallways Monday, introducing legislation that would impose a below-inflation pay rise and fines for stop-work action on employees before a planned Friday strike.
The move marks a sharp escalation after months of slow-burn talks between the province and the 55,000 (mostly female) educational assistants, early childhood educators, school librarians and janitorial staff represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
The Ontario Federation of Labour described the proposed legislation as a “full-frontal attack on basic labour freedoms” and said it would hold an emergency rally outside the Labour Ministry on Toronto’s University Avenue at 5 p.m. Tuesday in response.
Employees represented by CUPE have said they won’t show up for work on Friday anyway without a fair deal, which appears out of reach.
“No one wants to strike, least of all the lowest-paid education workers, who can barely pay our bills,” said Laura Walton, an educational assistant from Belleville and president of CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions.
“Still, we need a significant wage increase, and we deserve it.”
The union has asked Premier Doug Ford’s government for around $3 an hour more after a decade of suppressed wages and a recent spike in inflation that equals a significant and real pay cut. Instead, staff whose average salary is $39,000 a year could face fines if they withdraw their labour at the end of the week.
If passed, the Keeping Students in Class Act would impose a pay rise of between $0.40 to $0.67 per hour, up from an initial offer of $0.33 to $0.53 an hour, which Walton described as “still a significantly long way off from what these workers need to get out of poverty.”
Education Minister Stephen Lecce said he was “left with no choice but to take immediate action today” to keep students in class after receiving the legally required five days’ notice of intent to strike on Sunday.
The president of CUPE Ontario, Fred Hahn, said Lecce did and still does have a choice.
“He has a choice to offer an adequate salary increase that compensates for over a decade of wage cuts,” Hahn said. “He has a choice to invest in education to ensure adequate staffing levels from the classrooms to the libraries. And he has a choice to continue negotiations without having the threat of ramming through a contract full of concessions and wage cuts over the heads of front-line workers.”
The proposed legislation would allow the government to impose its contract on the unionized workforce, invoking the notwithstanding clause in order to sidestep procedural avenues to appeal or legal challenges of its dismissal of collective labour.
“The notwithstanding clause was never meant to be used in contract negotiations, or as a casual tool to disrupt basic human rights safeguarded in our charter,” the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said in response. “This misuse and the flagrant disregard for individual rights is wrong.”
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The showdown could also ensnare the province’s teachers unions, which are at varying stages of their own contract negotiations with the Progressive Conservative government. One of them, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, cut its talks short after the legislation was introduced.
