TORONTO – Student parks workers,
members of OPSEU Local 310 and 313 respectively, will leaflet cars going
into Sibbald Point and Six Mile Lake Provincial Parks on Saturday, July
11:
Sibbald Point Provincial
Park (off Hwy 48, onto York Rd. 18, near Sutton)
Main entrance
10 a.m. - 12 noon
Six Mile Lake Provincial
Park (Exit 162 off Hwy 400, north of Port Severn)
Main entrance
12 noon onwards
Students are protesting the decision
by the Ontario government to not pay them vacation and holiday pay this
summer.
More than 3,000 students work for the
provincial government in the summer. About half earn minimum wage, $9.50
an hour.
In past years, 8.16 per cent of gross
pay was added to the summer students’ hourly wage to compensate them for
not getting a paid vacation and for having to work statutory holidays.
The government notified the union
that the employer had erroneously made these payments in past years and
would no longer do so because the Crown, (the government), is exempted
from its own legislation, the Employment Standards Act.
“The Ontario government should be a
model employer, especially for students who are the future of the
province,” said OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas.
“Instead, they exempted themselves from labour standards
that they enforce with respect to all other employers in the province.
The McGuinty government must do the right thing: change the law so they
abide by the same rules as everyone else and, in the meantime, pay the
students their vacation and holiday pay.”
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