FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 14, 2005
OPSEU bargaining teams recommend rejection of McGuinty offer
TORONTO – Bargaining representatives for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union have recommended that their members vote to reject the final offer tabled by the McGuinty government on May 12. The contract offer affects over 42,000 Ontario government employees.
OPSEU members will vote on the employer offer on May 25, 26, and 27. A rejection will give the union a strike mandate. The previous contract expired Dec. 31, 2004. No strike deadline has yet been set.
OPSEU President Leah Casselman said that the contract offer doesn’t come anywhere close to what her members expected in their next collective agreement.
“This is not a contract offer, it is an insult,” Casselman told a meeting of more than 300 OPSEU local presidents in Toronto May 14. “Dalton McGuinty was elected to rebuild public services, and the best way to do that is to treat those delivering the services with respect. There is no respect in this offer. It is
nothing more than a re-hash of Tory bargaining concessions of the past 10 years.”
“This offer is disgusting, and it does nothing to alleviate the problems in our provincial courts,” said Julie Weber, a Brampton court clerk who represents thousands of court workers, many of whom are contract workers with no job security or benefits. OPSEU earlier reached an agreement-in-principle with representatives
of Attorney-General Michael Bryant that would offer them permanent part-time status, but the government has failed to include it in its “final” offer.
The government has offered two per cent a year in a three-year deal that would also eliminate early retirement provisions, termination pay and separation pay – concessions designed to make it cheaper for the government to proceed with its planned 6,000 layoffs over the next few years.
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For further information:
OPSEU Communications: Don Ford, (416) 443-8888 ext. 7442
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