As contract talks between Ontario’s government and thousands of education workers devolve into a legal battle, labour experts are split over whether the workers’ big pay raise request is a reasonable one — and whether the public will be on their side.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is asking for an 11.7 per cent annual raise for 55,000 workers, including education assistants, early childhood educators, custodians and administrative assistants.
The pay hike request may appear staggering to many Canadian workers, who won’t get a raise anywhere near that scale this year, even with inflation at about seven per cent.
But labour economists who
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