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Hello and welcome to Best Of Maclean’s.

“I'm not going back until we get a fair deal.”

Nichola Harkness is an education worker in Kingston, Ontario.

For the past 17 years, I’ve been an educational assistant with the Limestone District School Board. My job involves providing support for special-needs students, helping with physiotherapy, feeding, toileting, speech, movement, everything. I love my job. I love the students. But I’m now one of thousands of education workers on strike in Ontario, and I won’t be going to work today—or tomorrow, or again until the Ford government chooses to negotiate a fair deal with us.

To be clear, it’s illegal for me to protest like this. The government just passed Bill 28, the Keeping Students in Class Act, which fixes my wages through 2025 and prohibits job action. I could be fined up to $4,000 for missing work today—but I don’t care. Workers are leaving the education system in droves because they can’t afford to support their families, and I’m fed up, along with my colleagues.

In August, our union requested a pay increase of $3.25 an hour—with the average CUPE education worker making $39,000 a year, that’s an 11.7 per cent pay raise. That might seem like a big jump, but it follows more than a decade of wages steadily dropping in real terms: we’ve seen 19 per cent inflation in that time, and our salaries have only increased 8.8 per cent, making for a de facto pay cut.

But instead of negotiating with us after that request, the provincial government fast-tracked Bill 28, unilaterally imposing a new contract. It offers education workers making less than $43,000 a year a 2.5 per cent wage increase annually through 2025. Those earning more get a 1.5 per cent increase, and we can’t negotiate salaries for the foreseeable future.

For me, that increase is almost meaningless. I only make $34,500 a year, barely more than I made when I was hired full time in 2008. Based on my salary, the proposed wage increase means I’ll get an extra $72 a month. That’s before taxes, benefits and my pension get taken out—it won’t even buy me a full tank of gas.

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