Thin Blue Line: Join Lapd

Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Join Lapd

Oakville parole and probation officers took to the snowy streets outside their Speers Road office on Monday, to protest what they called an unfair contract offer by the Ontario government.The small, but dedicated, group’s demonstration was part of a much larger day of action that saw parole and probation officers across the province protest a new collective agreement being proposed by the government to the OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) Corrections Bargaining Unit.The existing agreement expired on Dec. 31.Probation Officer Gord Longhi, chair of the bargaining team, said there are numerous issues facing probation and parole officers, which are not addressed in this latest agreement.“One of the big issues they haven’t even touched on is excessive workload. We put that on the table hoping to get our workloads down, so we can protect the public in the way that we’re hired to,” said Longhi. “When we don’t have enough time to spend with sex offenders, domestic assault cases, drug dealers, we don’t have time to protect the community properly.” Longhi said each probation and parole officer currently keeps track of between 80-90 offenders.