FOG BLOG ONTARIO NEWS LOG: ONTARIO EDUCATIONAL WORKERS STRIKE DESPITE BEING TOLD BY FORD TO RETURN!

'Not going to back down': Ontario education workers walk off the job, government calls action 'illegal' Government taking union to labour relations board over 'illegal strike action' Thousands of Ontario education workers hit picket lines Friday in the first day of an indefinite walkout that has closed schools across the province, after the government passed controversial legislation that imposed a contract and rendered any strike action illegal.

School board workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) were protesting at politicians' offices, including hundreds of members outside Queen's Park and the education minister's constituency office in Vaughan, Ont. Members of other unions — including the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and Unifor — also joined the picketers.

On Thursday, the Progressive Conservative government enacted Bill 28, a law that imposed contracts on 55,000 CUPE members and banned them from striking. The law also uses the notwithstanding clause to protect against constitutional challenges — a legal mechanism that has only been used twice in Ontario's history, both times by the governments of Premier Doug Ford.

CUPE says the law is an attack on all workers' bargaining rights and is staging a walkout anyway, warning that it will last until the government repeals the bill.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the Ford government's legislation an "attack on one of the most basic rights available, that of collective bargaining."

Asked if the federal government is considering referring the use of the notwithstanding clause to the Supreme Court of Canada, Trudeau said it is looking "all options."