Wednesday, October 02, 2019
As of this past Monday, 55,000 CUPE education workers announced that they would be starting a work-to-rule campaign. Work-to-rule is a job action where employees follow their job description to the letter, doing none of the ‘extras’ that are often taken for granted, including overtime and other tasks as assigned. Work-to-rule is meant to prove a point about excessive workloads.
Today, CUPE announced that they would be striking as of next Monday if a deal cannot be reached. With three other education sector unions also bargaining, the odds of there being at least one strike becomes more and more probable. While each union may have different strategies for ongoing negotiations, from work-to-rule to transparent bargaining, they are fighting under a united message: that cuts aren’t trimming fat, they’re hitting the bone.
This September, we saw dramatic cuts in staff numbers, the advent of larger classes and reduced course availability for secondary students. And so, it should be clear to most, that these unions are not just bargaining for their members’ compensation, but for the preservation of a high quality, publicly funded education system as we know it.
AMAPCEO stands in solidarity with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Elementary Teacher’s Federation of Ontario (EFTO), the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA).
Job action is no union’s first choice. AMAPCEO recognizes these decisions haven’t been made lightly, and moreover, that these unions are not only standing up for themselves, but for all of us in the in the face of Bill 124 – legislation aimed at limiting all public sector unions’ constitutionally protected rights to bargain free collective agreements in the future.
Dave Bulmer
President
