THUNDER BAY – Custodial, maintenance and cafeteria staff are pleased with a new contract ratified last week with the Lakehead District School Board, according to local union leadership.
The local contract supplements a central collective bargaining agreement, which was ratified in November by The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)’s 55,000 support workers in Ontario. Provisions like the annual one per cent wage increase negotiated in the central agreement don’t come into effect until the local contract is also signed, though the increase will be applied retroactively to Sept. 1, when the previous agreement expired.
Rodney McGee leads CUPE local 2486, which represents maintenance, custodial, and cafeteria staff at the public school board. He says the new local agreement made progress for his members on training, health and safety, and contracting out of work.
McGee says violence in schools is a growing issue for his members. He hopes a new health and safety working group, one result of the negotiations, will help address that. He would like to see the other unions representing Lakehead school board employees around that table, as well.
Another issue addressed in the agreement is the contracting out of work that would normally be done by CUPE members, such as maintenance projects. McGee says language in the new agreement requires the union to sign off before outside workers can be brought in.
The agreement also provides for more training opportunities for custodial staff.
McGee was positive about relations between his union and the school board.
“We have a good relationship, we work well together,” he says. “Bargaining can sometimes be difficult, but I think we both came out of it pretty satisfied.”
