Hundreds of public sector workers from across the province gathered at Queen’s Park Tuesday to protest the austerity measures they say the province wants to impose on them.

Without a contract since Dec. 31, the union is decrying the government's contract proposal of four more years with no wage increase. OPSEU, representing 35,000 provincial employees, received a strike mandate of more than 90 per cent from its members in early November.

Speaking the crowd in -15 Celsius temperatures, union president Warren (Smokey) Thomas delivered a message to Premier Kathleen Wynne and Treasury Board President Deb Matthews.

“Come to the bargaining table, get all those Draconian concessions off the table, bargain fairly (and) you will get a contract,” he said.

Thomas said instead of being a friend of public sector workers the Liberals “come with something worse than (former Tory leader) Tim Hudak or (former Tory premier) Mike Harris or any right-winger could have ever dreamed up.”

“I truly believe Kathleen Wynne thought ‘we can make OPSEU fold up real fast’ and they were wrong,” he said adding, “we didn’t pick this fight but we will damn well finish this fight.”

Faced with a $12.5 billion deficit, the Liberal government, which was elected with a majority in June, is promising to balance the books by 2017-18. And union leaders accuse the government is doing it on the backs of workers.

A Matthews spokeswoman said the public expects the government to work together to reach an agreement that is fair to our employees and taxpayers.

“We remain committed to working with OPSEU and to negotiating a fair deal. Both parties have agreed not to bargain in the media because the right place for that negotiation is at the table. We remain at the table, willing and able to negotiate with OPSEU,” Leslie O'Leary said.

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