Ontario chamber AGM with premier picketed by OPSEU

By Adam Brazeau 
CORNWALL, Ontario – Dozens of unionized provincial employees shouted in protest, as Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s black SUV peeled into the back of a swanky restaurant in downtown Cornwall Thursday.

While Wynne greeted the crowd inside Table 21, members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) held an information picket outside.

The lively group of roughly 60 Ontario Public Service (OPS) workers, represented by OPSEU, chanted “shame, shame” in the large parking lot area behind the establishment.

“We’re here to communicate to Kathleen Wynne the need to get back to the table and bargain in good faith,” said OPSEU Local 453 President Brian Dunham.

The premier is in Cornwall for the Ontario Chamber of Commerce’s annual general meeting. The four-day event kicked off Thursday night with a “night social” gathering.

“We’re just asking for what is fair,” said OPSEU eastern Ontario Vice-President Dave Lundy.

He says the public demonstration is meant to shed light on the Liberal government’s push towards privatization, an estimated $8.2 billion dollars spent on private sector contracts and corporations, and its refusal to bargain a fair collective agreement.

Cornwallites strolling downtown were taken aback by the giant Wynne puppet waving to oncoming traffic. Dunham says the walking spectacle helps to get their message across since it stops passersby in their tracks.

“Wherever she goes, we will meet her there,” he said.

OPSEU represents all frontline ministry employees who work directly for the Ontario government, an estimated 35,000 employees at nearly 1,600 work sites. The current collective agreement expired Dec. 31, 2014.

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