UWOFA calls on the Ontario government to halt the appeals process

LONDON, March 10th, 2023 – The University of Western Ontario Faculty Association (UWOFA) is calling on the Ontario government to halt the appeals process and accept Justice Kuehnen’s ruling which struck down Bill 124 in November of last year. As UWOFA President Rachel Heydon recently stated in the London Free Press, the bill was “a constitutional overreach restricting free and fair collective bargaining.”

This appeal is only serving to add more uncertainty to the lives of working people hard hit by inflation, while also costing money that could be better spent reinvesting in the public sectors which desperately need it. This attack on workers must stop and free collective bargaining must be allowed to resume.

Queen’s University Faculty Association and University of Toronto CUPE 3902 Sessional Instructors have recently settled deals without a Bill 124 moderation period, indicating that some academic employers in this province have taken the court decision seriously and have decided not to continue to arbitrarily enforce salary-capping legislation that is no longer in effect.

UWOFA is optimistic that the ruling will be upheld, despite the government’s efforts to overturn it. Recent arbitration decisions acknowledge that Bill 124 is no longer in effect. UWOFA urges the Ford government to work together with public service employees instead of maintaining this unnecessarily adversarial position which wastes time, energy, and money that could be put to much more productive use.

UWOFA represents over 1600 Full-Time and Part-Time Faculty, Academic Librarians and Archivists.

For more information contact: UWOFA Communications Officer, Maram Hijazi, 519-661-3016, uwofaco@uwo.ca