OPSEU stages rally to protest pay freeze

The provincial government should abolish corporate tax cuts and put more money into the public sector, demonstrators with OPSEU said Friday.

About a dozen local members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union took to the street outside of MPP Bill Mauro’s (Lib., Thunder Bay – Atikokan) office to protest $2.4 billion in corporate tax cuts. The rally was part of a province-wide OPSEU initiative aimed at protesting Ontario’s public sector wage freeze.

"We believe that the corporate tax cuts are hurting our community and are in correlation with the wage freeze," OPSEU’s Erin Rice said outside of Mauro’s office Friday afternoon. "If Queen’s Park has the money to hand out large corporate tax cuts then they have the money to pay people a decent wage."

While some wage increases have been awarded to some OPSEU groups through arbitration, Rice said they’re well below Ontario’s 3.4 per cent inflation rate.

"We are seeing some movement but not enough movement right now," she said.

Rice said the protest isn’t directed at Mauro, who was out of his office Friday, but at his party.

"He’s a Liberal and he’s our Liberal," she said. "I don’t blame him personally I blame the Liberals."

Although proponents of corporate tax cuts argue that less tax for business means job creation, Rice said there are no rules in place to ensure that becomes a reality. If the corporate tax cuts were axed, Rice said that money could be spent on anything from public sector wages to paying down the deficit.

"They might create jobs or they might buy a yacht it’s up to them," Rice said.

Rice said she makes less than $30,000 a year as a support worker for the developmentally challenged in Thunder Bay. The corporate tax cut comes out of her, the 3,500 other local OPSEU members and everyone else’s pocket.

"Every penny that is taken from me in this wage freeze it goes directly into corporate tax cuts," Rice said. "I don’t think that that’s fair."