MEDIA ADVISORY: Ontario education workers to release ratification vote results

Event Information

Begins: 5 December 2022 @ 10:00 A.M.
Location: Toronto, ON

TORONTO, ON –/COMMUNITYWIRE/– What started with 55,000 frontline education workers raising their voices for the job and service improvements that are needed in schools across Ontario will culminate in workers once again speaking collectively on whether to ratify a tentative agreement that was reached by their central bargaining committee with the Council of Trustees’ Associations (CTA) and the Ford government on November 20.

The online ratification vote opened on Thursday, November 24 and will close on Sunday, December 4.

“My coworkers and I stood up to the Ford government to get a forced contract repealed as part of the anti-worker Bill 28,” said Laura Walton, educational assistant and president of CUPE’s Ontario School Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU). “This tentative agreement is our first in 10 years to be freely bargained instead of forced on us with legislative interference. For the last week and a half, frontline education workers have been deciding if what’s in this tentative agreement is acceptable. This – workers having the freedom to negotiate and to withdraw our labour if necessary – is democracy in action.”

WHAT:​

• Announcement of education workers’ ratification vote results

WHO:​​

• Laura Walton, educational assistant and president of CUPE-OSBCU
• ​​Christine Couture, library technician and vice-president of CUPE-OSBCU
• ​​Michelle Campbell, educational assistant from York Region

WHEN:​

• Monday, December 5 – 10:00 a.m.

WHERE:​

• Queen’s Park media studio, Legislative Building, Rm 149, 111 Wellesley St. W., Toronto, ON, M7A 1A2

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The Ontario School Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU) unites 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) who work in the public, Catholic, English, and French school systems throughout Canada’s largest province. OSBCU members are educational assistants, early childhood educators, school library workers, child and youth workers, administrative assistants, secretaries, custodians and tradespeople, instructors, nutrition service workers, audio-visual technologists, information technology professionals, school safety monitors, cafeteria workers, social workers, and more.

For more information, contact:

Ken Marciniec
CUPE Communications
kmarciniec@cupe.ca
416-803-6066 (cell)