Are you an education worker in Ontario? Take up the fight against the Ford government’s attempt to impose wage-cutting contracts on school support staff with the assistance of its partners in the union bureaucracy. Email [email protected] or fill out the form at the end of this article to contact the Ontario Education Workers Rank-and-File Committee.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has given the required five-day notice for 55,000 school caretakers, education assistants, early childhood educators, and administrative staff to strike across Ontario, beginning Monday, November 21. The announcement comes just over a week after CUPE, in alliance with the Canadian Labour Congress, Ontario Federation of Labour, Unifor and other major unions, scuttled a two-day strike by the workers, which won strong popular support and was rapidly building towards a general strike.

Speaking at a press conference Wednesday morning, Laura Walton, lead negotiator for the CUPE-affiliated Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU), stated that after several days of talks no agreement had been reached at the bargaining table. However, she admitted that the bargaining committee has come to terms with the government on a wage deal that would represent a huge real-terms pay cut for the overwhelmingly low-paid workers. Walton revealed that the hard-right Progressive Conservative government has offered a $1 per hour increase for each year of the collective agreement, amounting to a 3.59...

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