An electrician with a northwestern Ontario school board says he and his co-workers “won’t have a choice but to look for other jobs” if the province passes the controversial Bill 28 this week.
Matt Parent, a school maintenance electrician with the Rainy River District School Board, was referring to the possible repercussions of the Keeping Students in Class Act, which was tabled on Monday. If passed, it would impose a new deal on education workers — including administrative assistants, librarians, custodians, and maintenance/trades workers — and make any strike action illegal.
In addition, the government has said it intends to use the notwithstanding clause to prevent any Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenges to the bill.
Parent said he’s “very disappointed in how the government is trying to bully us into signing a contract that is not beneficial to the students or to the staff in our local.”
“Them pushing legislation shows that they haven’t been bargaining in good faith from the start.”
The government’s final offer included a raise of 2.5 per cent a year for any education worker making less than $43,000 per year and 1.5 per cent for those making more.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) said Ontario’s education workers are among the lowest paid in the sector, and sought a raise of 11.7 per cent.
“We can’t take another pay cut,” Parent said. “We’ve been taking pay cuts for 20 years, and if we don’t stand up for ourselves now, we’re not gonna have a job we can afford to work at anymore.”
Education workers are planning a protest on Friday — despite Bill 28 allowing for heavy fines against anyone who participates. Parent said that in Rainy River, they’ll be demonstrating outside of MPP offices, not schools.
“It’s to show that our fight isn’t with the schools,” he said. “They know where they cannot hire staff to fill empty positions.
“My position was open for two years before I moved back to town and accepted it. So management’s … on the same page as us,” Parent said.
Parent said another outstanding issue is short-term disability.
“They are trying to take big chunks away from that,” he said. “With an aging workforce, it’s not beneficial to them, for the people who need it most.”
On Wednesday, Thunder Bay-Superior North NDP MPP Lise Vaugeois was among nearly 20 people kicked out of the Ontario Legislature over their opposition to the bill.
WATCH | NDP MPPs are told to leave Queen’s Park amid debate over a controversial bill aimed at education workers:
Interim NDP leader Peter Tabuns among 16 MPPs kicked out of Ontario legislature
Some 16 NDP MPPs were kicked out of Queen’s Park on Wednesday during a debate over legislation introduced by Premier Doug Ford’s government to ban education workers from striking.
Video of the incident shows NDP Interim Leader Peter Tabuns being ordered out by Speaker Ted Arnott, after Tabuns accused Premier Doug Ford and his ministers of lying to the public.
When Tabuns refused to retract his “unparliamentary comments,” he was told to leave. That was followed by other NDP members, including Vaugeois, banging on tables until they, too, were asked to leave the chamber for the day.
“We didn’t do this frivolously,” Vaugeois told CBC News. “It’s really, again, making it as clear as possible that this bill needs to be removed.Thunder Bay-Superior North NDP MPP Lise Vaugeois, shown in a file photo, was among nearly 20 people kicked out of the Ontario Legislature on Wednesday over their opposition to the Keeping Students in Class Act. (Submitted by Ontario NDP)
“It’s removing fundamental rights that each one of us has through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it’s removing the right to bargain, for collective bargaining,” she said. “It’s imposing a contract on the lowest-paid workers in the education system and leaving them really at a wage level that’s not enough to live on.”
The Ontario NDP said three members of the public were also removed from the Legislature for “voicing their displeasure to the government.”
Vaugeois said CUPE negotiators have been at a Toronto hotel all week in hopes of resuming talks, but government negotiators haven’t attended. Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce said Tuesday the government won’t resume talks until the union cancels any strike plans.
Parent said he remained hopeful a deal would be reached.
“None of us want to strike,” he said. “We want to be there. We want to be at work.”