Bill 124: Billions at stake as Ontario takes public sector workers to Court of Appeal
Global News
Last November, a judge with the Superior Court of Justice struck down Bill 124, Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, ruling it unconstitutional.
Billions of dollars are at stake as a three-day hearing at Ontario’s highest court gets underway Tuesday over the province’s controversial wage-limiting law for public sector workers.
Last November, a judge with the Superior Court of Justice struck down Bill 124, Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, ruling it unconstitutional.
The province appealed.
There are some 780,000 broader public sector workers in Ontario, including teachers, nurses and most employees of the province. Bill 124 became law in 2019, limiting their wages to a one per cent raise per year over a three-year period.
The province’s fiscal watchdog says the province owes public sector workers about $8.4 billion over five years if the law remains overturned. Ontario has already paid about $1 billion to workers who’ve recently gone to arbitration to reopen their contracts in wake of the ruling.
In its factum filed with the Court of Appeal, the province said Justice Markus Koehnen made “fundamental legal errors.”
The province says the law does not interfere with the collective rights to free and fair bargaining.
More than 10 groups fighting Bill 124 say that it does.
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