Local CUPE members have joined thousands across Ontario to create “mobilizing committees” and fight what they consider the threat of provincial legislation hampering collective bargaining rights.
CUPE is holding 20 meetings provincewide to spread awareness in the wake of Bill 115 and other proposed provincial legislation.
CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn said Bill 115, which gave the government the power to stop strikes and lockouts and impose its own agreements, is a slippery slope.
“If we can do that to any one segment of our society and people think it’s OK, we’re all vulnerable,” said Hahn, who was in Windsor Thursday night. “That doesn’t make any sense. We think most Ontarians would agree with us.”
More than 100 people attended the Windsor meeting at the Caboto Club on Thursday, including health care, education, child care, city and emergency service workers.
Bill 115, and where the government goes from there, was a hot topic. Local CUPE member Andrea Madden, who works with the Children’s Aid Society, said there is also proposed draft legislation aimed at “going after the broader public sector.
“We have a right to sit down and negotiate an agreement,” she said. “What they’re doing is taking away a charter right. So we’re talking to our members about that, we’re talking about where we’re going to go from here.”
“We’re going to make it clear that these actions need to cease and desist.”
Hahn said Bill 115 was “unprecedented and unconstitutional.”
“The rights we have as union members are not just about us,” said Hahn. “They really are about everybody in communities. When we’re talking about the right to bargain, it’s important to remember what bargaining has done.”
He said those accomplishments, including same-sex benefits, maternity leave and occupational health and safety, are things that everyone now enjoys.
“It’s a fundamental issue, not just for us as trade unionists, but we think for our communities and for everyone,” he said.
“It removes the fundamental democratic right of people who work for school boards to freely bargain their agreements,” said Hahn. “It’s why we’ve launched a charter challenge against it.”
