Correctional officers throughout the province may be on the picket line within the next month.
"Our team is going to be meeting with a conciliator from the Ministry of Labour, we've reached an impasse. We're not moving anywhere on bargaining, we've been trying for a year," says OPSEU Local 135 President Randy Simpraga.
Simpraga says the correctional officers want to be named an essential service because what they do is just as important as police officers on the street. Instead, when correctional officers are on the picket line, managers, nurses and kitchen staff run the prison. The union would also like to see more safety provisions and better benefits to help with injuries and stresses from the job.
"They walk that line of enforcing these rules yet surviving and living with these inmates. We're not just warehousing people any more. We're providing a service. We're providing protection," says Simpraga.
The union will sit down with a Ministry of Labour conciliator next week and if an agreement is not reached a "no board" will be filed. They can go on strike 17 days after that.
