Labour unions are escalating the constitutional battle against Premier Doug Ford’s controversial legislation capping wage settlements.

A week after education unions launched Charter challenges, a slew of other labour organizations joined the fray.

“In terms of challenging this undemocratic legislation, the more the merrier,” said Fred Hahn, Ontario president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

“This challenge is about defending workers’ rights protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” he said.

Hahn said Tuesday that 10 unions representing more than 250,000 broader public-sector workers would be filing a co-ordinated Charter challenge against Bill 124 in the new year.

They follow the four teacher unions who announced their legal fight last week.

Also Tuesday, the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) announced its own separate court push.

“This legislation is nothing but a continued attack on the right to free collective bargaining without interference, as was affirmed in 2015 in a Supreme Court of Canada ruling,” said Vicki McKenna, the ONA president.

“More alarming is the fact that this legislation could likely deepen the already serious nursing shortage in Ontario, and have negative effects on health care and public safety,” she said.

Sharleen Stewart, president of SEIU Healthcare, which represents 60,000 health workers across the country, said the Progressive Conservatives are making the same mistake the previous Liberal government did with Bill 115.

That was former premier Dalton McGuinty’s 2012 law imposing settlements on teachers, which was struck down by the courts as unconstitutional three years ago even though then-premier Kathleen Wynne had already repealed it.

So far, the government has paid out more than $100 million to the teacher unions as a legal remedy resolving Bill 115 with tens of millions more expected.

“For the government to set limits on bargaining undermines the rights of workers who already face systemic discrimination across the board,” said Stewart.

Bill 124, which was passed last month and is retroactive to this past June, limits any salary increases across the broader public sector to one per cent a year for the next three years.

Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy said Tuesday that the government is confident its law can withstand a constitutional challenge.

“Our government conducted a series of good-faith consultations with public-sector employers and bargaining agents on managing compensation growth responsibly,” said Bethlenfalvy.

“During that time, 23 in-person sessions took place. These sessions were attended by 68 employer organizations in sectors covering more than 2,500 collective agreements and 57 bargaining agents who collectively represent over 780,000 workers across all sectors of Ontario’s public service,” he said.

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“This legislation enables the government to manage public-sector compensation growth in a fair, consistent, and time-limited manner. It supports our ongoing efforts to restore the province to a position of fiscal health and demonstrate respect for taxpayers’ dollars.”

The wage-cap bill is a major sticking point in the government’s thorny labour negotiations with education unions. High school teachers will hold another rotating strike Wednesday, targeting York and Halton public secondary schools and 10 other smaller education boards.

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