CUPE members and supporters join a demonstration in the east-end of Ottawa, Friday, Nov. 4, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
TORONTO – Several Ontario school boards, including the Toronto District School Board, are planning to reopen for in-person learning Tuesday, as education workers announced an end to a walkout that began Friday.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 55,000 Ontario education workers who walked off the job, says they will end their job action and be back at work Tuesday.
The announcement from CUPE comes after Premier Doug Ford said he will repeal legislation that imposed a contract on the workers and used the notwithstanding clause.
The premier had said he would only repeal the law if the CUPE employees stopped their walkout, which began Friday and shut hundreds of schools.
Laura Walton, president of CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions, says she hopes the union’s gesture of “good faith” in ending its walkout is met with similar good faith by the government at the bargaining table.
CUPE members walked off the job despite the law banning them from doing so, and the government had taken them to the Ontario Labour Relations Board on the legality of the job action ““ a board ruling is pending.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2022.
