OPSEU/SEFPO President JP Hornick joined fellow education union leaders today to speak to the power and necessity of solidarity.
Education unions – who collectively represent over 250,000 K-12 education workers in Ontario – have been working closely together during what is already proving to be an extremely challenging round of collective bargaining with the Ford government.
Elected leaders from OPSEU/SEFPO and other major education unions addressed hundreds of elected workplace representatives that gathered today at an event organized by OSSTF.
“This government isn’t just attacking one group of workers. They are attacking public sector workers, they are attacking education workers, and they are attacking social and community service workers,” said Hornick. “We actually make up the fabric of connection that reminds people that we’re in it together.”
“Right-wing governments like this one spend a lot of time trying to figure our where they can drive wedges between us,” added Hornick. “We need to harness this energy, have those one-on-one conversations, and remember every single day – especially when it gets hard – that no other worker is our enemy.”
For the first time ever, OPSEU/SEFPO has its own Central Bargaining Table, with negotiations and workplace organizing being led by the Sector 3 (Boards of Education) Central Bargaining Team.
Like with other education unions, negotiations have reached an impasse over the scope of bargaining, with the provincial government seeking to centralize negotiations on matters that have previously been determined at the local level, and preparing attack ads to undermine education workers.