Our jobs are ‘Worth Fighting For’ – hundreds picket in Peterborough

Twenty-seven community and social services agencies, all organized with OPSEU-SEFPO, hit the picket lines simultaneously on May 25. All are part of the “Worth Fighting For” campaign that brings together workers in developmental, youth, child welfare and addictions services, shelters and community agencies. Workers in this sector were hit hard by Bill 124, brought forward in 2019, aimed at limiting the right for public sector workers to bargain wage and benefit increases to 1%. The Bill ended in 2022, when the Tories sought to renew it, but lost their case to do so in court.

 

Approximately 100 workers hit the picket line at 8 on Monday morning in Peterborough at the offices of Developmental Services of Trent Highlands, part of OPSEU-SEFPO Local 358, which represents approximately 300 workers in the Peterborough-Kawartha Lakes-Halliburton area. Earlier this Spring, they had voted 97% to strike. In Toronto strikers hit the pickets in multiple locations including Sistering, a 24/7 drop-in shelter for women and gender diverse folks. Picket lines are up in large and small communities from London to Thunder Bay.

 

The campaign was organized around synchronizing the end of collective agreements across as many companies/agencies in the sector, so that workers across the sector would bargain, and strike together against their various employers. The goals were to recoup 6.5% across the board as a make up for the wage restraint under Bill 124, but also to fight government cuts in the sectors, that have an impact not just on workers, but also their clients and their families.

 

At the strike deadline, the 27 OPSEU-SEFPO locals did not have acceptable settlements from their employers, leading 5000 workers across the province in those locals to take coordinated strike action. This is one of the first of its kind in English Canada, where workers adopt the ‘Common Front’ tactic often used in Quebec, which brings large numbers of workers in various sectors to bargain and take collective action. It means that locals no longer fight in relative isolation, against a single employer, but use their collective power to make demands not just on the employer, but also political demands on the government.

 

Many union activists in the public sector have long argued for a ‘Common Front’ approach taken by Quebec public sector unions. It pulls together the incredible power that workers have when they fight together to improve not only their own working conditions, but also the services used day in and day out by the public, which they deliver. When you pull together community members with workers taking action, you have the kind of force that can reverse the terrible cuts that we are seeing affect working class communities throughout Canada, no matter which stripe of government is in office.

  

Join a picket line near you!

Info at: https://opseu.org/campaigns/worth-fighting-for/