Ontario college faculty get salary boost after Bill 124 struck down

College faculty members represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union will be receiving an additional 6.5 per cent in salary increases over three years.

They are the latest group of public sector workers to see their pay boosted due to an Ontario court finding a provincial wage restraint law known as Bill 124 unconstitutional.

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The Progressive Conservative government's 2019 law capped salary increases for broader public sector workers' next set of contracts at one per cent a year for three years.

The government appealed after the court declared the law unconstitutional last year, but in the meantime many workers have been awarded additional wages due to "reopener" clauses in their contracts that were triggered when the law was struck down.

• READ MORE: Doug Ford government will appeal Ontario court decision to strike down Bill 124

The 16,000 full-time and partial-load college faculty represented by OPSEU will now be receiving wage increases of three per cent in each of the first two years of their 2021-2024 contract and 3.5 per cent in the third year, after the union and the College Employer Council reached a mediated settlement.

Ontario Public Service Employees lead negotiatior JP Hornick, left, now the union president, speaks during a press conference in Toronto on Thursday, Nov.16, 2017. College faculty members represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union will be receiving an additional 6.5 per cent in salary increases over three years.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Other workers to have received higher wage increases after Bill 124 was overturned include hospital registered nurses, other hospital workers such as dietary aides and personal support workers, and paramedics at the Ornge air ambulance service.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 16, 2023.