Ford forks it over
And the eye-roll heard round the world
Presented by Ontario’s Universities
ABOVE THE FOLD
WAGE WARS — It’s pay day for Ontario’s civil servants — their biggest one in over a decade.
That’s thanks to an arbitrator’s decision that awarded folks repped by OPSEU retroactive pay in the wake of wage-capping Bill 124, which held raises to a paltry one per cent for three years. The decision was part of a reopener clause in OPSEU’s contract.
Now, employees are in line for a 9.5 per cent pay increase over three years (three per cent in 2022 and 2024, and 3.5 per cent in 2023). That’s the biggest bump since 2012.
But the fight over the controversial 2019-era law isn’t over. The Ford government is appealing a lower court’s ruling that deemed it unconstitutional because it violated workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining.
Meantime, OPSEU workers are the latest in a long line of public service employees getting retroactive pay post-Bill 124, including teachers, nurses, hospital workers, ORNGE air am…