Ontario CUPE education workers start voting on whether to strike
CBC
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.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce has criticized CUPE for planning strike votes since before the first offer was even tabled.
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.
"Starting (today), 55,000 front-line education workers will have a chance to give their bargaining committee a strike mandate to make the Ford government and school board trustees take us seriously," she said.
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.
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."
Lecce said in a statement that education unions are clearly "charging ahead" toward a strike.
"It's never been more clear that CUPE will strike if its demand for a nearly 50 per cent hike in compensation is not delivered," he wrote, referring to what the minister says would be the total of salary and various other compensation-related proposals.
The White House said on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump is discussing options for acquiring Greenland, including potentially using the U.S. military, in a revival of his ambition to control the strategic island despite European objections.
A massive wind-to-hydrogen project in western Newfoundland will not be going ahead, but one of its main proponents has a new multi-billion-dollar proposal involving windmills in the region.
A Nova Scotia community is mourning a 13-year-old boy who died following an attack by three dogs.
Two severely malnourished children who were apprehended from their parents in 2023 may now need to use feeding tubes for the rest of their lives, a Winnipeg court heard as their mother was sentenced to five and a half years in prison on Tuesday.
Sandy Lowndes, a grain farmer near Kelvington, Sask., says her land has been illegally drained onto for decades.
A businessman from West Vancouver, Yuri Fulmer jokes that he's no stuffed shirt.
WARNING: This story contains disturbing details of physical and sexual abuse and self-harm. Resources and supports can be found at the bottom of this story.
A newly enacted provincial order on school literary materials prompted some Alberta school divisions to remove a couple of dozen books from school shelves, but the names of those titles are secret.
Two parents say a recently-opened trampoline park in the Greater Toronto Area is “not safe” after their 11-year-old son fell to the ground from a zipline on Saturday.
Parents raising autistic children in the Northwest Territories say accessing respite support can be difficult, even after they have been approved for help.
After almost four years of major conflict, Ukraine has been given a series of concrete security guarantees — backed by more than 30 countries including Canada — that it can take into possible peace talks with Russia.
A petitioner looking to oust an Alberta cabinet minister says she has a huge task ahead, as the campaign nears its deadline for signature collection.
Kashechewan First Nation, along northern Ontario’s James Bay coast, plans to evacuate residents in the coming days because its water treatment system is in disrepair.