Frontline education workers, labour leaders and allies plan to rally across Ontario on Saturday.
Just over a week after workers from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) walked off the job, rallies are set to be held in solidarity with Ontario’s education support workers, according to a statement released Friday evening.
After the strike began, the Doug Ford government invoked controversial legislation that impacted workers’ ability to strike, but the bill was later rescinded.
Bill 28 also invoked the notwithstanding clause to impose a contract on CUPE’s 55,000 education workers.
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“After a historic pushback by workers and their allies, the Ford government has promised to repeal Bill 28, the anti-worker legislation that imposed a bad contract on Ontario’s lowest-paid education workers,” the union said in the statement.
“These Solidarity Saturday regional rallies are a reminder that $39,000 per year is not enough – for education workers or anyone – and that the Ford government must offer education workers a deal that accounts for current high levels of inflation and an 11 per cent legislated wage cut imposed on workers over the last decade,” the statement said.
The rallies are planned to take place from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday at Conservative MPP constituency offices across Ontario.
Students returned back to the classroom on Tuesday and the union’s central bargaining committee remains at the negotiating table, according to the statement.
— With files from Global News’s Gabby Rodrigues
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