CUPE Ontario says it won’t support Bill 122

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) says it won’t support Bill 122 — the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act — because it says the Liberal government has failed to honour its agreement with school support workers.

The agreement was made a year ago at 13 boards across the province.

At a news conference Monday, the union said the province has broken faith with school board support workers, who they say are the “backbone of our schools.”

CUPE Ontario’s Fred Hahn, along with CUPE national president Paul Moist and CUPE’s School Board Co-ordinating Committee chair Terri Preston, spoke at the news conference.

“As a result of this broken faith [with] the school board support workers, until the government actually lives up to the deal they negotiated last year, why would we trust them?” Hahn said.

“The Liberal government has said that Bill 122 will prevent the kind of chaos that took place in our schools under Bill 115,” he added.

“We are here today to say it won’t work. For the past year, the government has refused to honour and enforce the agreement that it signed with CUPE last year under Bill 115.”

The province is currently debating Bill 122. If approved, it would create a two-tier bargaining process.

There are eight unions that are formally acknowledged in the text of the bill, but CUPE is not.

CUPE also called on MPPs from all parties to reject Bill 122.

“It’s why we’re calling on all MPPs to withhold their support for Bill 122, until the government lives up to the side of the agreement that it signed with CUPE school board support staff,” Hahn said.

Moist said Bill 122, which is at its core central bargaining, but that central bargaining only works if both parties are bargaining in good faith.

“We are calling on the government to do the right thing,” Moist said.

Preston said some support staff aren’t being treated fairly. She said the provincial government is creating “inequality in schools, which is the very opposite of what central agreements achieve.”

“Support workers doing the same jobs, working just down the road from one another but employed by different boards, are receiving differential treatment.”

The bill passed a second reading at the Ontario legislature in December, but has not yet gotten final approval.

CUPE, which is Canada’s largest union, represents Ontario’s 55,000 support workers in public, Catholic, French and English school boards. The workers include educational assistants, secretaries, early childhood educators, instructors, community advisory staff members, food service workers, library technicians and custodians.

With reports from Kris McCusker, 680News