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For Your Information Who Said What in Opposition to Anti-Social Law
"This [Bill 124] is a regressive bill that for years will prevent the majority of Ontario's 280,000 [Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)] members, as well as tens of thousands of hardworking frontline workers who belong to other unions, from exercising their constitutionally protected right to engage in free collective bargaining. It is absolutely shameful [...] There are no services without the people who actually do this work and it is those people that are being impacted by this regressive bill. All that speculation of a change in direction by the Ford Conservatives, is just smoke and mirrors. Bill 124 proves that their agenda of cutting public services and blaming front line workers for the deficit hasn't changed." -- Fred Hahn, President, CUPE Ontario, November 7, 2019 "This legislation is clearly driven by ideology and not sound public policy. Bill 124 strips Ontario faculty of fundamental democratic rights. This entire exercise has been justified based on a manufactured crisis and a farcical set of public consultations. The costly consultation was led by external legal counsel and not civil servants or elected officials and was clearly a sham to justify legislation that was almost certainly written well before the consultations began. It is reckless for the government to introduce this disruptive measure in the public sector without a shred of evidence of its economic or other purported impacts. [The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA)] is also deeply concerned about the sweeping powers granted to the President of the Treasury Board in the proposed legislation. Empowering the minister, in their "sole discretion," to make orders about collective agreements and arbitral awards is at best contrary to democratic principles." -- OCUFA, June 19, 2019 "The Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act tramples on collective bargaining rights and targets public sector workers with unfair austerity measures for the next three years. The legislation ensures that compensation for educators and other public sector workers will continue to fall behind the rate of inflation. The passage of the legislation comes just one day after the Minister of Finance bragged to Ontarians that the economy is thriving and that the government is more than a billion dollars ahead of its deficit reduction targets. "The unions, all currently in negotiations with the government for new collective agreements, are preparing a court challenge to the legislation, which likely violates the Charter rights of their members. The unions entered into negotiations in good faith, and have been doing everything they can to move the process forward. With the passage of this legislation, the prospects for good faith bargaining have been all but shattered."-- Joint Statement of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, and the Association des enseignantes et enseignants franco-ontariens, November 7, 2019.
"As the elected leaders of one of the largest public sector unions in Ontario, we vow to vigorously fight the Ford government's draconian and sexist wage-cut legislation in a court of law and in the court of public opinion. In both cases, we will win. By unfairly targeting public sector workers -- the majority of whom are women -- Bill 124 is an attack on women. At a time when government should be actively working to make the gender wage gap smaller, the Ford government is actively making it larger. Bill 124 is also a clear violation of public sector workers' constitutional right to free and fair collective bargaining. How can bargaining be free when it has been hamstrung by a cap? -- Warren Thomas, President and Eddy Almeida, Vice-President/Treasurer, Ontario Public Service Employees Union, November 8, 2019.
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
"Bill 124 is a direct attack on the
collective bargaining rights of every worker in the province [...] The
Ontario Federation of Labour is committed to fight this Bill at every
step, and we are reviewing all of our options -- both political and
legal -- including the launch of a Charter challenge. Now that the Bill
has passed, I cannot imagine a scenario that does not result in a
charter challenge [...] The agreements unions bargain on behalf of
their members must be negotiated at the bargaining table, not in the
legislature." 
"Bill 124 violates the Constitutional
rights of Ontario workers and will see families fall further behind in
their struggles to keep up with the cost of living. [...] The [United
Steelworkers (USW)], which represents thousands of public-sector
workers, particularly in the university sector, believes Ford's
legislation will be struck down by the court [...] The courts have
repeatedly ruled this type of legislation infringes on the Charter
rights of working people to be able to freely and collectively
negotiate with their employers ... Most recently, the previous Liberal
government in Ontario imposed similar legislation that attacked these
fundamental rights and it was emphatically ruled unconstitutional by
the courts."