As Ontario’s nearly 6,000 provincial jail guards and probation and parole officers prepare for a possible strike on Sunday, calls are increasing for their jobs to be declared an “essential service.”

Similar to police officers and TTC workers, being designated an essential service would ban a strike option, but would mean binding arbitration between the government and the officers.

“The justice system and the prison system are essential services because they’re necessary for the public welfare,” said Criminal Lawyers’ Association president Anthony Moustacalis.

It’s a demand backed by the head of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), which represents the guards and probation and parole officers, who fall under the union’s Correctional Bargaining Unit.

“They want to be deemed essential with the right to arbitration, and the government has said ‘Well we’ll consider that next contract, but not this contract,’ ” Warren “Smokey” Thomas told the Star.

Annie Donolo, a spokeswoman for Treasury Board President Deb Matthews, said that the tentative agreement recently rejected by a majority of the unit’s membership would have included “binding arbitration . . . as a dispute resolution mechanism for future rounds of collective bargaining.”

Both sides will meet again Friday with a mediator in a last-ditch effort to reach a contract deal, although Thomas said he isn’t hopeful.

“I don’t have a crystal ball and anything’s possible, but it’s looking pretty likely for a strike or a lockout,” he said.

Aside from being declared an essential service and eventually having a salary on par with police officers and firefighters, correctional officers also want the government to address understaffing and overcrowding in the jails, Thomas said.

The government has said it will bring in managers from across the public sector to fill in for the guards should they go on strike.

Donolo said the managers have been trained to perform the work done by those who will be on strike, adding that “most direct contact with inmates will be handled and overseen by experienced corrections managers.”

Thomas and criminal defence lawyers have expressed concern for the safety of those very managers and of the 8,000 inmates in provincial custody, many of whom are awaiting trial.

“Honest to God, I just pray (the managers) don’t get hurt,” said Thomas. “I just don’t think they know what they’re getting themselves into.”

Jail staff including nurses and kitchen and maintenance workers, who also fall under OPSEU, will be expected to work during the strike, but Thomas said they will be instructed not go in on a case-by-case basis should security deteriorate in the jails.

Lawyers have also been complaining about labour disruptions causing their clients to be brought late to their court appearances, or lockdowns that prevent inmates from speaking with counsel in person.

They also say that judges could begin to throw out charges against accused people due to the delays in getting them to court.

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“Judges, as well as defence lawyers and Crown attorneys, are expressing a great deal of frustration that cases aren’t ready to go because prisoners aren’t in the building, or are being brought up to court one at a time in a way to frustrate the court process,” said criminal defence lawyer Daniel Brown.

Thomas at OPSEU said none of this is deliberate on the part of the guards, but rather the result of chronic staffing shortages which he accuses the government of refusing to fix.

The last time Ontario's jail guards were on strike was in 2002, during a 54-day strike by civil servants.

Disturbances broke out across the province's jails, ranging from outright riots to inmates breaking windows and setting fires. Managers desperately tried to keep inmates, on lockdown, in line with pizza and porn, the union charged.

With files from The Canadian Press