Canada: CUPE education workers reach agreement with provincial government
20 June 2017
The settlement comes slightly more than a year after the Ontario Superior Court issued a decision in favour of several education unions, ruling the government’s Bill 115 unconstitutional.
“We are pleased to finally have reached agreement on monetary recognition that the Ontario government violated our basic Charter rights,” said Terri Preston, chair of the union’s education sector coordinating committee, who led the remedy talks alongside CUPE’s Jim Morrison. “Bill 115 should never have been introduced in the first place. Justice Lederer’s decision gave us the ability to negotiate redress for our members.”
The negotiated deal will provide for CAN$56.7 million, to be paid out over an agreed amount of time, if CUPE education workers ratify it. Ratification votes will be held across the province by the end of June.
The exact number to be paid to each CUPE member will depend on the final number of claimants. Claimants who were employed for both affected school years (2012‑13 and 2013‑14) will receive a full share of the award, and those who were employed during only one affected school year will receive a half‑share of the award. The award could affect over 60,000 CUPE members who were employed in the education sector during the years covered by Bill 115.
The Bill 115 court challenge was filed in 2013 after Bill 115 stripped Ontario education workers of their right to bargain collectively. In CUPE’s case, in addition to banning strikes, the Bill lumped CUPE members’ interests in with those of teachers, even though the union could only bargain on behalf of its members. The challenge was postponed in 2014 and then resumed in December 2015.
“The court validated our position that Bill 115 was a gross overreach that trampled basic freedom‑of‑association rights,” said Fred Hahn, president of CUPE Ontario. “Justice Lederer wrote that the impact of Bill 115 was ‘not just on the economic circumstances of education workers but on their associational rights and dignity, autonomy and equality that comes with the exercise of that fundamental freedom.’ The ruling and this remedy settlement combined send such a clear message to governments: do not interfere in free collective bargaining. Do not mess with workers’ rights.”