It is Ontario education minister Stephen Lecce versus the teachers and support workers. All the parents want is labour peace and education for their children. After the past two years of on-again, off-again learning in Ontario, parents are frustrated by the political agenda and the demands of people involved in the education of their children. And if Ontario premier Doug Ford is driving the school bus towards private schools, the parents are already constrained by the escalating cost of putting food on the dinner table.
We have known for months that this was coming and that both sides would be intransigent. There are a lot of education unions and they are all lined up to do battle with the Ontario conservatives. And we all know that it will always be the parents and their children who will lose. The parents will lose the work time. Their children will be struggling to catch up.
And all the current union that is up to bat has to say is that Stephen Lecce does not know his arithmetic. Lecce has claimed that the union is demanding $21 billion more for its workers and the union says it only asked politely for an additional $11 billion.
Why the two sides would play that game for public consumption is beyond me. Not to insult the general public but I do not know many people who think in billions. All I know is that the school boards’ council of unions want an extra $3.25 per hour over the next three years for all the 55,000 teaching assistants and other support staff. (You do the math.)
The government, in turn, has made a counter offer of two per cent for those making less than $40,000 per year and 1.25 per cent for those earning more than $40,000. I know that the average is $39,000 per year and that there are part-timers included. (That is where I gave up on the math.)
All I know is that if you live in Toronto and have to support two people on less than $40,000 per year, you are living in poverty.
I am beginning to think that Stephen Lecce is dumber than his boss Doug Ford.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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