More than 100 OPSEU member activists and retirees protested the slow pace of OPS contract negotiations and the threat to jobs posed by privatization outside the Tim Horton Field in Hamilton this past weekend. The stadium is the site of the Pan Am Games soccer competition.
The information pickets coincided with the opening soccer match on Saturday July 11, and the Canada-Brazil match the following day.
“$500 million on Pan Am Games but cupboards bare for OPS bargaining,” tweeted Region 1 vice president, Ron Elliot, who was joined at the protests with fellow Region 1 executive board members Len Elliott and Philip Shearer, and Region 2 VP, Deb Tungatt.
At a Queen’s Park press conference July 10, OPSEU president Smokey Thomas pledged the union would make its presence felt at Pan Am venues across southern Ontario.
“Kathleen Wynne seems to have money for all the things she wants but is punishing every public sector worker,” Thomas told reporters. “We’re not out to disrupt the Games. We support the athletes and we wish them well. We just want to get our message across that there is a lot of money going into these games and what about the rest of society?”
