OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor. Send your letter to [email protected]. This letter is in relation to the province's education workers beginning a work-to-rule campaign. You can read more about that here.
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The battle between the provincial government and the (unionized custodians, clerical workers and early childhood educators) commenced Monday.
The battle is over who will carry the load to reduce the provincial deficit: will the workers in the school system take a hit or will the taxes be increased?
A deficit reduction is a good thing.
Strikes against the governments are not like strikes in the private sector. These strikes are against the taxpayer as governments just pass the cost through to us.
The present provincial government won recently an election on the promise to cut expenditures, so it has a strong argument to do what it is carrying out now.
Both sides have so far only published political platitudes and few hard facts on what is offered or demanded in these negotiations. Hence it is difficult to decide which side to support.
However, the one thing is certain that this dispute will be messy and drawn out as the parties appear to be far apart and both fight principles.
Konrad Brenner
Ramara Township
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