The Decibel - School staff walk out to protest new Ontario legislation

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

The labour dispute between educational workers, represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government has escalated this week. The union issued its strike notice on Sunday and the government responded with back-to-work legislation that included the controversial notwithstanding clause on Monday.Talks broke down on Thursday afternoon after the mediator decided the two sides were still too far apart. The union has decided to proceed with a protest that the province’s legislation has made illegal. The Globe’s future of work reporter Vanmala Subramaniam explains why many union leaders across the country are keeping a close eye on what happens next.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Hi, I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and you're listening to The Decibel. The mediator decided to call off the discussions just in the protest legislation passed in Ontario that forced a new contract on them. Vanmala Subramaniam is the Globe's future of work reporter, and she's been covering the labour movement in Canada and the broader ramifications of this specific fight between the Canadian Union of Public Employees, known as CUPE, and the Ontario government. This is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Vemula, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. Thanks for having me. So we are talking Thursday afternoon and things are moving very fast on this story.

So things are shifting. But as of right now, without these CUPE workers on the job on Friday, what's going to happen at schools in Ontario? Yes, a couple of school boards have said that they'll stop in-person classes if there aren't support staff on the job. So basically, if these workers do go on strike, which they plan to, some of these school boards are quite large and prominent. So the Toronto District School Board, the Peel District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board, and, you know, a couple of others, about six to seven others, they have said that they'll stop in-person classes. I think that has been a misconception about who exactly is going on strike, because I'm seeing that quite a bit

in comments. It's not teachers. These are education workers, like library assistants, maintenance workers for schools, early childcare educators, or, you know, education assistants in classrooms. So essentially, schools will have to shut down, and, you know, education assistants in classrooms. So essentially, schools will have to shut down and you're going to see a lot of parents scramble to figure out what to do about child care. The union that we're talking about, CUPE, the union originally asked for an 11.7% increase to salary annually. But then we know, thanks to reporting by The Globe and Mail, our colleagues Jeff Gray, Dustin Cook, and Caroline Alfonso, we know, thanks to reporting by the Globe and Mail, our colleagues

Jeff Gray, Dustin Cook, and Caroline Alfonso, we know that CUPE actually put a new offer on the table on Tuesday night, asking for a wage increase of 6% instead per year for four years. How did the Ontario government respond to that offer? On the government side, they said they are willing to give a 2.5% increase for people who earn less than $43,000 a year and 1.5% for workers who earn more than $43,000. position is and what the government's position is. And the government has not budged on that. Their hope is that they will institute back to work legislation sometime today before the strike. And part of that maintains that the legislated contractual wage is, you know, between 1.5 and 2.5%. Let's just focus on these numbers for another minute here, because I think when we hear something like an 11% increase, or even 6% for that matter, that seems like a big number. But can you just put that in context for us? Yeah, so there are a couple of things to keep in mind when you think about what 11.7% is.

First of all, these education workers are some of the lowest paid public sector workers in Ontario. So it's hard to compare wages between public and private sector workers, because public sector workers tend to be paid better, unionized public sector workers. But in this case, you know, the average annual salary, and now this is according to the union, the average annual salary of these workers are about $39,000 a year. Of course, when you think about that number, $39,000, it's including part-time workers. So a part-time worker could get $30,000, but it also includes full-time workers. I think a better way to look at it is if you think about these 55,000 workers, whether or not they're part-time or full-time, most of them get paid less than $60,000 a year.

The other thing to keep in mind is that we're in a particularly unique economic climate. Inflation over the last six months has ranged between 6% and 8%. And, you know, if you think about these particular group of workers over the last 10 years, and this is data from both the province and QP, their wages have increased by about 8.8%, not taking into account inflation, so nominal wages. But if you think about inflation over the last 10 years, you know, inflation has been about 19% cumulatively over the last 10 years. So effectively, if you look at these workers, they've taken a 10% wage cut. Yeah, that's important to remember. I'm glad you brought that up. And so let's go back to the back to work legislation here that we talked about. Beyond their counteroffer with respect to wages, the Ontario government has responded to this with back to work legislation they gave a five-day notice to the government saying

that if you don't meet our wage demands, we're going to go on strike, which is the right of the union to do. And it's quite common practice in collective bargaining. The government came back saying, okay, we don't want you to go on strike because education workers are essential workers. We can't afford to have schools closed down. So we're going to institute back to work legislation. And on top of the back to work legislation, to preemptively prevent the union from challenging back to work legislation in the courts, the government presumed that the union would effectively go to the courts and challenge back to work legislation. So in order to preempt it, they said, look, you can't do that. the government presumed that the union would effectively go to the courts and challenge back to work legislation. So in order to preempt it, they said, look, you can't do that. We're

going to invoke the notwithstanding clause. That means the union cannot challenge the back to work legislation using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the first time it has been used in a labor dispute. It's a very uncommon occurrence. The notwithstanding clause has been used in other political contexts, but not when it comes to a union bargaining with a government, which happens all the time. Ontario's education minister, Stephen Lecce, he's justifying this legislation by saying that they need to keep students in classes at all costs because kids have lost so much class time during the pandemic. And the government is even branding things this way.

They're calling the legislation the Keeping Students in Class Act. We are starting to see evidence that there is significant learning loss. For example, in Ontario, only 47 percent of grade six students actually met the provincial standard when it came to math in recent standardized tests. So how is CUPE actually responding to this concern that kids actually can't afford to miss any more school? CUPE is saying that they're doing what a union would do for its workers. It's important to remember that the right to strike and the right to collectively bargain are tools that unions traditionally use from their toolbox so it's not entirely surprising that the union would issue a five-day strike notice and say that look if you're not meeting our wage demands

or if you're not even meeting us halfway we are going to take this action i think what's different this time around is the fact that the members of unions are willing to strike and they are overwhelmingly supporting the union's decision to go on strike. What more commonly happens with unions is they both start on very opposing ends of the scale of, you know, whatever they're asking for, be it better benefits, and they slowly meet at the middle. In this case, the government took a very hard line very early in the negotiation. So that kind of is what makes it very different here. We'll be back in a minute.

So essentially, by invoking the notwithstanding clause, this allows government to kind of circumvent the charter for a set period of time. By using this clause, I guess, what message is the Ontario government sending to the union, CUPE, and by extension to other unions in Canada? to remember that's very interesting about what's happening in the labor movement right now is we have not for decades been in a period of negotiating collective agreements when inflation is this high. And it's also important to remember that there are significant upcoming negotiations taking place in Ontario between the government and public sector workers. This year alone, there are 356,000 employees that have collective agreements expiring in the province. Whether or not those negotiations will end this year, they might carry on to next year, that remains to be seen. But the government is setting the tone with QP. And it's almost a sign to other unions saying this is the most we are willing to go. And if you push us, we will and you know, we can go this far by preventing you

from striking, taking away your right to strike by using the notwithstanding clause. Yeah. And so with that in mind, I mean, is it possible that that at least in Ontario, we could be seeing, I guess, maybe a winter of a lot of these conversations and a lot of labor disruption? This is what I'm hearing from labor relations experts. It's important to also remember that there are big union negotiations coming up in 2023., collective agreements for about 80,000 public sector employees are going to expire. And that includes people who work in hospitals, people who work, you know, in schools, school boards, colleges, Ontario ministries. There's also more of a propensity by workers to want to strike right now. And it's coming from a place of,

especially for frontline workers going through the pandemic and realizing what the true cost of inflation has been on them. Yeah. And to be clear, with the situation we're talking about right now, with the back to work legislation and the notwithstanding clause in place, what options does the union, does CUPE actually have here? So CUPE doesn't have many options. CUPE has said that regardless of whether they will get financial penalties, which the government has said they would impose on the union for striking, the union is going to go ahead with the strike. That means that the strike is essentially illegal. And it's very, again, very uncommon for unions to proceed in this way. But it almost speaks to how much unions feel like they have power and how their members are backing them to go on strike,

because they have to have, you know, their members agree to go on strike. And these are significant financial penalties, right? I believe it's $4,000 per member per day and $500,000 for the union as well. I mean, we're talking millions of dollars here. Yes. In fact, we're talking tens of millions of dollars that the union could potentially, you know, be on the hook for if they go ahead with the strike. And what's interesting about what QP said yesterday, what the union said yesterday, was that they are willing to eat the cost of this. And even if it means striking for longer than one day, they are also willing to eat the cost of it.

And QP did suggest that, although they didn't reveal much detail on it, they did suggest that other unions had their back when it came to the financial penalties. And so it's quite interesting that you're seeing this unity in the labor movement over, you know, the dispute that involves just 55,000 education workers. And to be clear, CUPE said they would eat those costs, so the union would be paying. People themselves wouldn't actually be forced to pay. Absolutely. clear, CUPE said they would eat those costs, so the union would be paying, people themselves

wouldn't actually be forced to pay. Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit more about this unity you were talking about in the labor movement. Other unions across the country, as we talked about, are ongoing collective bargaining as well this year. How have other unions responded to this labor dispute between CUPE and the Ford government? Unions across the country, and this ranges from public and private sector unions all the way from BC to Quebec, have expressed massive solidarity with QP on this issue. And what's particularly notable in this case is that there were eight construction unions, primarily in Ontario, that endorsed the Ford government in the provincial election this past May. And one of them, LIUNA, the Labour's

International Union of North America, it's a massive construction union, they actually issued a statement saying that they're opposed to the way the Ford government has gone about these particular negotiations, and they're opposed to the notwithstanding clause. So it's very interesting that a union that did support Ford in the elections, and you know, the Ford government kind of used the union to say, hey, we have the vote off the labor movement. These unions are now going against the way the government has gone about these round of negotiations. Just taking a step back here, Vanmala, you're the person who covers labor and the future

of work in Canada for the globe. We've talked already about how inflation has emboldened unions at the bargaining table. But I guess what about the labor market itself? How has the unemployment rate, which is at 5.2% right now, how has that actually affected collective bargaining in the last few months? way more than a year. And what that means is essentially that there are more jobs and there are people, you know, willing to take those jobs for those specific wages. And what you're finding with that, especially with the way that private sector unions have been negotiating with employers is that employers don't have as much leverage as they used to. So they're more willing to settle for the demands of, you know, employees asking for higher wages.

And there are a couple of great examples of that in the private sector. So this year alone, construction workers, and there's a big shortage of construction workers in Ontario, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, a big union representing electricians, they got an 8.6% wage increase over three years. When you say 8.6% wage increase, it's something that is quite uncommon for a union to negotiate. It's quite high. And, you know, we are seeing more examples of this. We're even seeing examples recently with Unifor, a big private sector union in Canada,

negotiating wage increases for airline workers, also another group of workers that are in, you know, vast shortage. All this to say, you know, there are some big wins that unions have been getting. And in fact, that has emboldened them to raise the bar for how much they're asking when they go to the bargaining table. So with all this in mind, what are you watching for in the near future with this CUPE dispute, but also just in the coming months with other labor negotiations in Canada? I think this particular dispute between CUPE and the Ontario government is the first real hostile negotiation we have seen's a ripple effect that's going to take place amongst, you know, all unions when they're at the bargaining table. For example, they think that, you know, employers, private

sector employers will look at the government and say, look, they have stood their ground, we're not necessarily going to go much higher than that either. And it almost sets the stage for what you can ask. What I'm keeping an eye on in the near term is exactly how this will play out. It's going to be interesting, you know, how long will these workers go on strike? Will the government budge from its current position? Or will the union just accept the government's position? But I think in the long run, over the next one year, it will be interesting to see what impact this specific negotiations has on tactics that unions employ when they negotiate with employers. Bemelow, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you so much for having me, Menaka. That's it for today. I'm Men ram and wilms our producers are madeline white

cheryl sutherland and rachel levy mclaughlin david crosby edits the show kasha mihailovich is our senior producer and angela pichenza is our executive editor thanks so much for listening and i'll talk to you next week