CUPE school board leaders vote to recommend tentative agreement
Posted January 5, 2013 3:43 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Leaders representing 55,000 CUPE members in the Ontario school boards have voted to approve a tentative agreement with the provincial government negotiated last week, and have recommended ratification by members.
“Our bargaining committee and our school board sector’s leadership believe this agreement deals with issues of importance to CUPE members and supports services in schools in a better way,” CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn said in a statement released Saturday.
The ongoing labour talks resulted in one-day walkouts by elementary school teachers last month, as well as both elementary and secondary school teachers withdrawing from extracurricular activities.
One of the topics at the heart of the dispute between both sides is the Putting Students First Act (Bill 115) which was passed with the support of the Progressive Conservatives on Sept. 11.
Public education unions claim Bill 115 violates their collective bargaining rights and they’ve filed court challenges.
Hahn said the task of bargaining in the shadow of Bill 115, the government’s attack on democratic collective bargaining rights, was almost impossible.
“Bill 115 created a crisis and continues to do so, and it is disingenuous to use it to impose or threaten to impose contracts, then try to make amends by repealing it after the damage has been done.” He added, “We are going to campaign until we receive assurance from all provincial leaders that they will not attack our basic bargaining and arbitration rights in the future.”
– With files from Shawne McKeown
