THUNDER BAY — The union representing 55,000 education support workers in Ontario has filed a five-day strike notice, despite saying it's "reached a middle ground” with the province on wage increases for its members.
According to leaders with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the province offered workers a $1 per hour raise in each year of its new collective agreement, or a 3.59 per cent raise in total. The union says members make around $39,000 on average and have seen only nominal increases over the past decade.
Talks are now “at a standstill” despite that offer, said Devin Klassen, the head shop steward for CUPE Local 2486, which represents around 150 workers with the Lakehead District School Board, including custodians and maintenance staff.
“To receive the dollar increase from the government, it’s a step in the right direction, but we need to see improved working conditions and services in schools,” Klassen said from Toronto, where he’s been participating in talks as a member of CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions bargaining committee.
The union is looking for guarantees of higher staffing levels for support workers like educational assistants, custodians, and maintenance workers, as well as a commitment to put an early childhood educator in every kindergarten class, not just those with 15 or more students.
Klassen said his members live the impacts of understaffing and low wages every day.
“In the maintenance field, we’ve had a very hard time at recruitment and retention for quite some time,” he said. “We have over 20 schools in Thunder Bay our members work at — we only have one current electrician for the entire city, and he’s not able to keep up with the work demands that are there.”
The union had scored what it called a victory after the Ford government on Monday repealed Bill 28, the legislation that declared a strike by education workers illegal and invoked the notwithstanding clause to protect the move from Charter challenges.
Members had walked off the job on Nov. 7 in defiance of that legislation, with rumblings that other unions could join CUPE in mobilizing for a general strike in protest.
“We are still open and willing to negotiate if the government does come back to us,” Klassen said.
However, he said there were no scheduled meetings between the two parties as of Wednesday evening.
Klassen will remain in Toronto over the coming days, hoping further discussions could occur
“We’ve made it pretty clear we need to see an increase in services. Unless the government comes back to us with an offer that has that intact, we don’t believe it’s a contract that’s going to be ratified by our members.”
“Until we see a deal we feel confident is going to be ratified by our members, we’re not going to bring something back to them.”
