Teachers from across Ontario protested at the provincial legislature Tuesday to speak out against a controversial bill that would impose new contracts.
"It feels so unjust that they would strip our contract for all the things that we felt were important in our particular district,” said Susan Ellison, a school teacher.
The new legislation would freeze salaries for teachers and school workers and ban lockouts and strikes for at least two years.
"They’ve kind of taken the wind out of our sail and we’ve been treated poorly and we haven’t even had a chance to negotiate,” Ellison adds.
The Liberal Government said this is all being done to save hundreds of millions of dollars to help deal with the province’s $15 billion deficit.
Conservatives say they will support the bill with some changes, meaning it will pass in the house,
“I don’t think that’s a very democratic process and everybody has an opinion whether teachers or otherwise,” says Clint. “In a democratic society I think we have a right not to be forced into positions.”
Some teachers understand trying to cut costs.
"To certain extent wage freezes make sense. But I think the problem maybe that a lot of trust has been broken,” said Shelby Hall, a teacher. ”So you can say we’ll freeze a wage for a year or two years but then what happened after those two years?”
Unions have promised there won’t be labour disruptions this fall. But they also say they are not ruling out a strike.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Katie Griffin and CTV Ottawa's John Hua.
