Service Ontario and provincial government offices in Fort Frances, June 2022. Image: Randy Thoms/Acadia Broadcasting
An arbitrator is awarding 30,000 provincial government employees a 9.5 per cent wage increase.
The increase is spread over three years, dating back to 2022.
Wage contracts were reopened last year after an Ontario court ruled Bill 124 unconstitutional.
The Bill had limited increases to one per cent per year.
The award gives employees of the Ontario Public Service Unified group a 3 per cent increase for 2022, a 3.5 per cent increase for last year and a 3 per cent increase for this year.
The hikes include the one per cent agreed upon when contracts were signed in 2022.
“This Award is a direct result of the unwavering solidarity of OPS Unified members who refused to back down,” says JP Hornick, the president of the Ontario Public Sector Employees Union, in a statement. “Their perseverance is what moved the needle in our favour, and what enabled us to win the largest increases these workers have seen in nearly 12 years.”
OPS Unified members includes most of the OPSEU members who work for government ministries and agencies.
The union says the arbitrator also awarded special wage adjustments in several job classes identified as having significant hiring and retention issues because of wage disparities.
The agreement also includes a new dispute resolution process to deal with wage disparities in other job classifications.
