The Canadian Union of Public Employees says its approximately 55,000 education workers will stage a provincewide protest Friday, meaning they will be off the job despite the Ontario government tabling legislation to impose contracts and ban a strike.
Laura Walton, president of CUPE's Ontario School Board Council of Unions, says whether workers continue to protest after Friday ``will be left up to what happens.''
Ontario introduced legislation today to impose a contract on education workers and avert a strike that was set to start Friday.
CUPE has said they will explore every avenue to fight the bill, but the government says it intends to use the notwithstanding clause to keep the eventual law in force despite any constitutional challenges.
The clause allows the legislature to override portions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for a five-year term.
The government had been offering raises of two per cent a year for workers making less than $40,000 and 1.25 per cent for all others, and the education minister says the new deal would give 2.5 per cent annual raises to workers making less than $43,000 and 1.5 per cent raises for all others.