QUEEN’S PARK – Students lose when the government doesn’t care about the people who care for our children, Mike Schreiner, said today.
Speaking in the legislature during debate on Bill 28, Keeping Students in Class Act, and during Question Period, Schreiner said the bill “takes a chainsaw to the Charter rights of education workers” by invoking the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to impose a contract on education workers.
“These education workers do extraordinary work under difficult conditions,” he said. “But it is hard to do that work as well as they can because these workers are struggling so much in their own lives to pay the rent and put food on the table with some earning as little as $39,000 a year.”
Half of these workers have to work a second job to make ends meet, many rely on food banks to eat, he said.
“I want schools to be open, education workers want schools to be open, and we want those schools to be safe, clean and staffed by fairly paid workers who can and will focus on student support and success.
“That won’t happen with a government attacking education workers’ Charter rights and forcing them to live on wages that don’t pay the bills.”
Schreiner said that we are already experiencing the results of disrespecting and underpaying workers in Ontario’s collapsing healthcare system.
“We can’t let the government do that to our schools as well.”