A lawyer representing the Ontario authorities says it should not matter that the contract that now binds 55,000 hanging schooling staff within the province was imposed on them and never negotiated.
Ferina Murji says strikes are prohibited within the midst of any contract, not only one that was reached by collective bargaining.
She made the touch upon the third day of arguments at what the chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board described as a (*2*) hearing to find out the legality of the walkout.
Brian O’Byrne heard arguments for 16 hours on Saturday, with the hearing stretching into the early hours of Sunday morning and resuming hours later.
Thousands of staff, together with schooling assistants, custodians and librarians, walked off the job on Friday in protest of authorities laws that imposed a contract on them and took away their proper to strike.
Union lawyer Steven Barrett argued Saturday that “to call this a mid-contract withdrawal of services, as if this was a collective agreement freely negotiated, is a fundamental absurdity.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Nov. 6, 2022.