We are 100% Essential, If Not We are ALL OUT!!

I write this letter as a Correctional Officer (CO) within Ontario. I feel some knowledge is needed with regards to the Labour dispute our employer, The Liberals, are about to put us through. When an impasse comes in the Collective Bargaining process, as it stands now, a strike or lock-out is called. If that happens our Correctional staff, which consists of all those that make our Corrections process run, including COs, Probation and Parole officers, Nurses, Records clerks, Rehab officers, and all others working within the walls of an institution or office, go out on what is called an Essential Service strike.

Since we are not deemed 100% Essential like our Law Enforcement and First Responder brethren, Police, Fire and Paramedics, we still have to do our job. Around 50 percent of our staff have to enter the walls with the same amount of inmates to provide the same level of care. That means the 855 assaults we faced in 2013 will have to be dealt with by less staff. That means the increased assaults by inmates on inmates will have to be broken up by less staff responding. That means the less staff supervising those inmates out on probation, the more freedoms and less checks they face.

For a job or service to be deemed Essential it must prevent:

a) danger to health, safety, and life

b) the destruction or serious deterioration of machinery, equipment or premises,

c) serious environmental damage, or

d)  disruption of the administration of the courts or of legislative drafting

I strongly feel that our work prevents all of those things to some extent and the threat of health, safety and life to my Brothers and Sisters, to the inmates and to the public is justification enough for our profession to earn the designation of 100% Essential.

Please understand that we are not asking for anything more, then to go to our jobs and protect and maintain order within our workplaces. We want what the Supreme Court decision on Right to Strike stated, an alternate mechanism, namely binding arbitration, to solve our collective bargaining impasse, when we are deemed essential.

This is an attack on public safety and the safety of all those employed in this profession. I have been very vocal publicly, along with many leaders and members of our profession, in asking this Government for recognition. We could use help. Please if you feel our jobs are important enough that we be deemed 100% Essential alongside the Police, Fire, Paramedics and Federal Corrections, go to 

https://www.change.org/p/ontario-liberal-government-make-ontario-correctional-service-workers-100-essential

Sign the petition and let your MPPs know the safety of, employees, those under our care and custody, and the general public, deserves to be recognized. No more Strikes, No more working short staffed on purpose, and No more death and injuries caused that could have been prevented.

If this Government refuses to recognize us as the Emergency Workers we are, then they should be fine with all those inside the walls being ALL OUT if a strike occurs.

In Solidarity.