Ontario CUPE education workers start voting on whether to strike

Ontario education workers including librarians, custodians and administrative staff are set to start voting today on whether to strike – and their union is recommending they vote yes.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees has called Ontario’s initial contract offer, which it made public, insulting.

The government has offered raises of two per cent a year for workers making less than $40,000 and 1.25 per cent for all other workers, while CUPE is looking for annual increases of 11.7 per cent.

The province’s five major education unions are all in the midst of bargaining new contracts with the government.

CUPE’s 55,000 education worker members are set to vote between today and Oct. 2 on whether to strike.

Laura Walton, the president of CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions, says the lack of progress over the last two days of bargaining “firmed up” why the strike vote is necessary.

The government has said it wants to tackle the bigger issues at a later date, such as salary, job security, sick leave and benefits, Walton said. But even attempts at discussions on simpler issues – such as bereavement leave and creating a replacement pool of workers to fill in when others are away – have not been fruitful, she said.

“We actually provided some counter-proposals that we were willing to withdraw items should they meet us halfway. They refused to meet us halfway so now we’re back to where we were in the beginning,” Walton tells CityNews 680’s Richard Southern.

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RELATED: Education union calling for strong strike mandate after ‘disappointing’ talks with province

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Walton has previously said that holding a strike vote doesn’t necessarily mean workers will withdraw services, but said in an interview this week that what people should worry about is the state of schools right now. She said there are not enough educational assistants to provide adequate support and not enough custodians to clean schools regularly.

“Our goal is that we are going to continue to fight for the services that our students need, and we’re going to continue to fight to make sure that the staff can afford to give those services to the students,” she said.

“Right now we’re seeing a government that just continues to disrespect the workers.”

Education Minister Stephen Lecce has criticized CUPE for planning strike votes since before the first offer was even tabled.

“They’ve all but confirmed they will strike. And I want families to know that we will stand up for you, for your children, and for the staff who want to be in the classroom,” Lecce said during a press conference with reporters on Friday.

The Ford government said on Friday it plans to increase funding for tutoring supports to parents by $140 million, which would bring the total investments to parents this year to over $365 million. However, there are still no details on when parents will receive the money or how much they can expect to receive.

The government has noted that CUPE is also asking for five additional paid days before the start of the school year, 30 minutes of paid preparation time each day, and increasing overtime pay from a multiplier of 1.5 to 2.

Walton has said the government’s offer amounts to an extra $800 a year for the average worker making $39,000.

CUPE and other unions have said they are pressing for increases to both compensate for their last contracts being subject to a legislative cap of one per cent a year – known as Bill 124 – and to address inflation, which is running just under seven per cent.

CUPE has several more bargaining dates with the government scheduled in October, but no more before the strike vote concludes.