Ontario education workers will be off the job on Monday and in the days following even if an Ontario labour board determines their strike is illegal, a spokesperson for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) confirmed to CBC News.
“Members are off the job and political protests will continue,” CUPE spokesperson Daniel Tseghay wrote in an email Sunday night.
Thousands of education workers, including education assistants, custodians and librarians, walked off the job on Friday to protest the provincial government passing legislation that banned strikes and imposed a four-year contract, using the notwithstanding clause to avoid constitutional challenges.
A hearing at the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB) to determine the legality of the strike concluded Sunday after three days of arguments between lawyers for the provincial government and CUPE.
CUPE’s intention to continue their job action regardless of what the board rules was first reported by The Globe and Mail.
OLRB chair Brian O’Byrne said he hopes to render a decision before the school week begins, but he’s not sure it can be done.
“I honestly cannot tell you when I will get you a bottom line,” O’Byrne said. “I’m going to try and do it by today. Hopefully I’ll succeed.”
A government lawyer argued before the board that it doesn’t matter whether the contract that now binds 55,000 employees was negotiated with their input or imposed upon them.
Ferina Murji said strikes are prohibited in the midst of any contract, not just one that was ratified by union membership.
“A collective agreement is a collective agreement is a collective agreement,” she said.
Ontario had ‘no intent to ever bargain in good faith’ with union, CUPE rep says
Laura Walton, the president of CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions, says the provincial government was ‘working harder on legislation than they were on negotiation’ with the union that represents education workers.
The government is seeking a ruling that their walkout is illegal, while CUPE — which represents education workers — contends the job action is a form of legitimate political protest.
The strike closed numerous schools across the province Friday, with even more set to shut on Monday.
“With 55,000 people not attending schools across the province, that means millions of students and their parents are left with nowhere to go, are left not learning, not getting the education that the Education Act ensures they will get,” Murji said, stressing the importance of the board’s intervention.
O’Byrne heard arguments over the course of 16 hours on Saturday, with the hearing stretching into early Sunday morning, before resuming just hours later, at 7 a.m.
As Day 3 of the hearing got underway, O’Byrne noted the “frenzied and sleep-deprived context of the hearings.”
Earlier in the proceedings, CUPE’s lawyer argued that an imposed contract should not be treated the same way as one that was negotiated through collective bargaining.
“I do accept that Bill 28 is in writing. But it is not a voluntarily negotiated agreement,” Steven Barrett said on Saturday.
“It is deemed to be a collective agreement under Section 5 … but to call this a mid-contract withdrawal of services, as if this was a collective agreement freely negotiated, is a fundamental absurdity.”
Barrett told O’Byrne that should he deem the strike legal, the job action could continue until the government repeals its new legislation or until the union and government negotiate its end.
The province’s new law has set fines for violating the ban on strikes of up to $4,000 per employee per day — which could amount to $220 million for all 55,000 workers — and up to $500,000 per day for the union.
CUPE has said it will fight the fines, but will also pay them if it has to.
Poll finds majority blame Ford government
Meanwhile, Ontario residents appear to be placing blame on Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government for the contract dispute, according to a new public opinion poll released Sunday.
The online poll from Abacus Data found that 62 per cent of respondents blame the provincial government for schools closing after education workers walked off the job Friday. Thirty-eight per cent point the finger at the workers.
Sixty-eight per cent of parents of school-aged children believe the Ford government bears the most responsibility, the survey found, while 71 per cent of respondents want the province to negotiate a “fair deal” with education workers, rather than continue with its current strategy.
The poll, conducted on Nov. 4 and 5, surveyed 1,000 adults and comes with a margin of error of 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20, according to Abacus Data.
Ontario education minister calls walkout ‘unacceptable,’ says offer to CUPE ‘fair’
Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce says the provincial government will use the means available to them to end the walkout by education workers represented by CUPE.
The union had been seeking annual salary increases of 11.7 per cent for its workers, who make on average $39,000 a year, but the imposed contract would give 2.5 per cent annual raises to workers making less than $43,000 and 1.5 per cent raises for all others.
Laura Walton, president of CUPE’s Ontario School Boards’ Council of Unions, said the results of the poll show Ontarians support the education workers in their job action.
“This poll confirms what we already knew: that the majority of people support education workers, that they see through the Ford government’s lies about working for workers and students, that they know $39,000 isn’t enough, and that they believe workers’ rights to freely bargain and strike if necessary must always be protected,” Walton said in a statement.
“Seven out of 10 Ontarians want the government to negotiate a fair deal. That starts with repealing Bill 28, an unjust law which Ontarians know is like giving a schoolyard bully a sledgehammer.”
CBC News has reached out to the office of the premier and the education minister for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Demands for government intervention in Air Canada labour talks could negatively affect airline competition in Canada, the CEO of travel company Transat AT Inc. said.
“The extension of such an extraordinary intervention to Air Canada would be an undeniable competitive advantage to the detriment of other Canadian airlines,” Annick Guérard told analysts on an earnings conference call on Thursday.
“The time and urgency is now. It is time to restore healthy competition in Canada,” she added.
Air Canada has asked the federal government to be ready to intervene and request arbitration as early as this weekend to avoid disruptions.
Comments on the potential Air Canada pilot strike or lock out came as Transat reported third-quarter financial results.
Guérard recalled Transat’s labour negotiations with its flight attendants earlier this year, which the company said it handled without asking for government intervention.
The airline’s 2,100 flight attendants voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike mandate and twice rejected tentative deals before approving a new collective agreement in late February.
As the collective agreement for Air Transat pilots ends in June next year, Guérard anticipates similar pressure to increase overall wages as seen in Air Canada’s negotiations, but reckons it will come out “as a win, win, win deal.”
“The pilots are preparing on their side, we are preparing on our side and we’re confident that we’re going to come up with a reasonable deal,” she told analysts when asked about the upcoming negotiations.
The parent company of Air Transat reported it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31. The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
It attributed reduced revenues to lower airline unit revenues, competition, industry-wide overcapacity and economic uncertainty.
Air Transat is also among the airlines facing challenges related to the recall of Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines for inspection and repair.
The recall has so far grounded six aircraft, Guérard said on the call.
“We have agreed to financial compensation for grounded aircraft during the 2023-2024 period,” she said. “Alongside this financial compensation, Pratt & Whitney will provide us with two additional spare engines, which we intend to monetize through a sell and lease back transaction.”
Looking ahead, the CEO said she expects consumer demand to remain somewhat uncertain amid high interest rates.
“We are currently seeing ongoing pricing pressure extending into the winter season,” she added. Air Transat is not planning on adding additional aircraft next year but anticipates stability.
“(2025) for us will be much more stable than 2024 in terms of fleet movements and operation, and this will definitely have a positive effect on cost and customer satisfaction as well,” the CEO told analysts.
“We are more and more moving away from all the disruption that we had to go through early in 2024,” she added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
