Province still fighting with only education union to reach a deal

It's strange for Mike Galipeau to look out the windows of his school in Sault Ste. Marie and see teachers picketing.

The custodian is one of the few people left inside during the past three months of rotating strikes that have closed schools across Ontario.

Galipeau says that strange feeling is made more complicated thinking back on the deal his union signed with the Ontario government back in October. 

"If we would have known at bargaining what we know today, it's highly unlikely that agreement would have been signed," says the regional vice-president with the Ontario School Board Council of Unions, which is part of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

With 55,000 custodians, secretaries, early childhood educators and educational assistants threatening a strike in the fall, they reached an 11th hour agreement with the provincial government.

Galipeau says one of the key issues was restoring 1,300 jobs that had been cut earlier in 2019.

The province pledged to spend $78 million to re-hire those workers, most of whom were educational assistants.

But Galipeau says the government isn't coming through as promised and his union is taking legal measures to make sure they stick to the deal. 

"Well, we were glad to get an agreement and not have a labour disruption, but since that time, government's been very disappointing. Actually, they've refused to live up to that agreement they've signed with CUPE," he says.

The Ministry of Education disputes this.

It provided CBC with the following statement:

"CUPE voluntarily signed an agreement knowing that many aspects of the agreement would be fully implemented once the union ratifies the agreement at both the central and local levels. Many boards and CUPE locals still need to ratify at the local level, and given the importance of these supports being in place, we urge the union and boards to expedite local ratification. Students deserve no less."

Galipeau says that some school boards in northeastern Ontario have restored the positions, without receiving the funding.

Only one school board replied to CBC's request to comment on this story. 

The Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board says it is restoring the equivalent of 15 full-time jobs, most of them educational assistants, but did not say whether or not it had received extra provincial funding to do so.