CUPE 4148

I’m sure many of you reading this right now are already tired of hearing about the current battle taking place between education workers and the Ministry of Education. Truth be told, so are many of us – the education support workers.

This has actually been going on since our contract expired on August 31, 2012. In an effort to win votes from the citizens of Ontario, the Ontario Liberal Party launched an attack on education workers and public service employees in general, insinuating that we were costing the taxpayers too much money and that the people of Ontario would be better served by privately run public services.

For education workers the attack was launched through legislation. Bill 115, offensively titled “Putting Students First”, completely violated our Chartered Rights to collective bargaining and insinuated that we, as education workers, were being selfish at the expense of our students. The truth of the matter is that all of the money that the Ministry of Education saved by stripping our contracts was never reinvested into the education of our students. The Ontario Liberal Party had a political agenda – to get re-elected.

Fast forward to August 31, 2014: not much has changed. The Ontario Liberal Party is still trying to privatize our public services and to balance their budget on the backs of Ontario public service employees. The imposed MOUs have now expired and the Ministry of Education barely even lets on that they are aware. The complacency with which the government and school boards have approached this current round of bargaining, especially for support staff, is frankly insulting.

In my opinion the provincial government and the school boards have always displayed a complete disregard and disrespect for the work that we do. We are always just an after-thought when they are dealing with the teacher groups. Even though our issues are different they don’t even want to hear from us until the teacher contracts are signed. We just get the leftovers.

Education support staff are a critical part of Ontario’s education system – a system that is already ranked in the top 5 in the world. It’s not the government and it’s not the school boards who keep the system in the top five. It’s the people who work every day in our schools and school boards. It’s our passionate, hard-working teachers as well as the 55,000 CUPE education support workers province wide. We are a team – one group is not any more vital or important than the other. Education support workers are the backbone of our schools. We ensure that our students have a safe, clean, and nurturing learning environment and we provide the additional supports students need to succeed.

We have been working without a contract since last August. On Friday, July 17^th, after enduring almost 11 months of delay after delay and being completely ignored by the Ministry of Education, our leaders were finally allowed to exchange proposals with the government and school board trustee associations. They are proposing another three years of zero wage increases on top of the zeroes we have had since 2012. Every proposal in the document involves a concession or a claw-back.

I can’t wait to see how the Ontario Liberal Party tries to justify their deep cuts to education funding this time around. Perhaps their next bill should be entitled “Putting the Ontario Liberal Party First”. Not one of their proposals works to the benefit of our students. In fact, they are to their detriment.

I am afraid for the physical and mental well-being of my members and our students. For the past few years education support staff have been struggling with excessive workloads. With the cuts to education funding for this September, many of our workers have lost their full-time employment. Our work environment has become unsafe in many circumstances. Unfortunately, our working conditions are also the students’ learning conditions.

Our schools cannot afford another cut to education support staff. With the implementation of a full-day kindergarten program and the dramatic increase in cases of behavioral issues, autism, ADHD, and learning disabilities, the level of student needs has increased dramatically. Too many of our students are unable to get the time and attention they need. The learning environment has become chaotic in many of our schools.

CUPE Education Support Workers work hard every school day in very difficult work environments with very little appreciation and respect. Our members have a passion for working closely with our young people and ensuring they have a welcoming, safe, and nurturing learning environment. They deserve the appreciation and respect of our province’s parents, school boards, and government!

Vicky Evans,

President, CUPE Local 4148

TORONTO, ON – The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), representing 55,000 education workers in Ontario’s schools, requested a no-board report on Wednesday, potentially putting its members across the province in a legal strike position the first week of school.

CUPE’s no-board request was initiated after its demand for conciliation failed to produce sufficient bargaining dates from the province and the Council of Trustees Association. Only three additional bargaining days were offered prior to the start of school.

“These additional days are still not enough,” said Terri Preston, Chair of CUPE’s Ontario School Boards Coordinating Committee (OSBCC). “So far, we’ve only had three negotiating days. Teachers have had more than 20 days. There’s no evidence that bargaining for education workers is being taken seriously. Our members have been without a contract for a year. All education workers deserve respect.”

Education workers include educational assistants, office administrators, custodians, tradespeople, instructors, library technicians, early childhood educators, IT specialists, speech pathologists and many others. They help keep the schools safe, clean and well organized while providing extra support to ensure all students have the opportunity to reach their potential.

For more information, please contact:

Mario Emond, CUPE Communications, 613-237-9475

 

 

 

By Colin MacKay, Intelligencer Writers Group -Tuesday, August 18, 2015 2:07:05 EDT

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents many school support staff, has been extremely frustrated by the lack of progress with contract talks with the province.

Many workers and negotiators feel they have been overshadowed by the teacher’s federation’s contract negotiations. In all cases, both teachers and support workers have been without a contract since, August 31, 2014. In a show of bravado, on May 28, Liz Sandals, Education Minister, stood up at Queen’s Park, boasting she could do a lot of bargaining in 102 days.

Support staff workers may include custodians, tradespeople, secretaries, computer technicians, educational assistants and some early childhood educators to name a few. These people feel they are not being taken seriously by the provincial government. To back up their claim, they point to a meeting arranged by Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario, on July 23, with all of the teacher’s federation’s presidents. CUPE did not receive an invitation for this meeting.

CUPE represents roughly 55,000 men and women who, on average, make $38,000 a year. They keep schools clean and safe. Often, the secretary is the first person anyone entering the office area meets. Educational assistants often have to deal with students that have considerable difficulty in school. These support workers are essential in the day-to-day running of a school. Yet, negotiations are apparently at a standstill. Less than five days have been used for negotiating with CUPE, since May 28th. Maybe Sandals is a miracle worker and will magically come to a negotiated agreement with CUPE before students arrive in September. Certainly, the days are passing quickly with little movement toward an agreement.

CUPE will be holding provincial meetings at the end of August to determine whether or not they will be going out on a full strike or choosing to have a work-to-rule campaign. There are talks scheduled for Aug. 19 and Aug. 20 in a last minute effort to avoid labour unrest. Sandals certainly is leaving everything to the last minute. Sometimes time pressure can be used as an effective method of reaching a deal or parties can dig in their heels. Apparently, Sandals decided to take most of the summer off when dealing with CUPE and their issues.

The provincial government is pursuing an austerity agenda and wants to cut education costs. Cuts to special education programming are usually at the chopping block first when an austerity agenda is pursued. While the need for more support workers has never been higher in Ontario, boards of education when faced with cuts inevitably lessen the number of educational assistants. Or, boards may attempt to further integrate special education students into the regular classroom.

Nevertheless, special education programs are being cut back in boards all over the province. If special education funding is inadequate, usually support staff workers are the first to lose their positions. These workers can be the ears and eyes of a school, keeping a school running more smoothly. Without them issues tend to creep into the classroom much more readily.

School support staff workers deserve a negotiated contract this year, hopefully before school begins. If not, schools could be considerably dirtier with no custodians taking out the garbage. Messages may be lost if secretaries are not around to answer the phone. Unruly students will take up a considerable amount of a teacher’s or principal’s time without support from an educational assistant or child youth care workers. These workers are needed and should never ever be taken for granted. Come September, if there is no contract between CUPE and the province, public schools in some cases may have to close.

Liz Sandals seems confident that deals with CUPE and teachers federations will soon be signed. She has a couple of weeks to succeed. If not, chaos in schools is almost guaranteed.

– Colin MacKay is an ETFO member with more than 25 years experience in local classrooms. 

 

Letters to the Editor Column – The Toronto Sun – Sun Aug 16 2015 – Section: Editorial/Opinion Column: Letters to the Editor

In light of the crisis that most are forecasting to take place in Ontario schools this coming September, my hope is that education support staff are not overlooked. Although I am in total support of the actions that Ontario teachers have taken, and that they will continue to take, I feel compelled to remind your readers that CUPE education workers have also been without a contract since Aug. 31, 2014.

We are amongst the lowest wage earners within the Ontario education sector and in terms of bargaining priority, we are often overlooked. We are the most precarious workers that the education sector employs. We are the first staff arriving at schools in the morning, the last staff to leave at night and we perform physically demanding jobs, often in the harshest of conditions.

We do not feel that the Ministry of Education wants to bargain with us in good faith. Bill 122 was supposed to fix that. It hasn’t! All it has done is create another layer of bureaucracy that must be contended with before anything meaningful (hopefully) can be done. We are also important cogs in the education wheel and while it seems that everyone else is driving this bus, my hope is that our plight is not forgotten.

Dan Bouchard, President of CUPE Local 2544, Peel DSB.

 

Ann Hawkins  President of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association Posted: 08/13/2015 5:35 pm EDT Updated: 08/13/2015 5:59 pm EDT

Ask Ontarians how they feel about a teacher in their life, or in their children’s lives, and you will hear a story of a figure who helped them overcome self-doubt or challenge, someone who led them to discover a passion or strength, or who spent time with their child to make sure that they would succeed.

Now ask them how they feel about the current labour negotiations between teachers and the provincial government. Did their face go blank?

Many people in this province have no idea what’s at stake with the current labour dispute between teachers and the Liberal government, although many will tell you they hope it’s over before Back to School begins, to avoid the work to rule strike action that many educators are about to take.

The results of this anecdotal research should surprise us. Why do people care so much about teachers and know so little about what is being asked of them by the Liberal government?

What is being demanded that has caused almost every teacher in this province to say a clear and definitive ‘no’?

The government would like you to think it’s about the money, as austerity has become a convenient cover for any and all government action.

Of course, salary and benefits are a part of any contract negotiations, and no one wants to be treated unfairly or have things taken away from them.

But parents have a right to know what’s really at stake, the issues that could cause a further decline in the teaching profession’s reputation and resources as political leaders attempt to pay off their debts through cuts to education.

These cuts are insidious, coming in the form of reduced prep time, increased workload and a shifting emphasis on data collection over learning.

But they will have a very real impact on the quality of education in Ontario – and that’s something to which we should all pay attention.

This week, OECTA will resume negotiations with the Liberal government. We want to avoid a labour disruption in September, but not at any cost.

These negotiations are about making sure teachers are hired in the proper way, and allowed to use their professional judgment in the classroom — without any and all decisions being dictated by elected trustees and ivory-tower bureaucrats.

These negotiations are about the fact that teachers matter, and the way they’re treated matters too.

For us, it’s unacceptable that the government led by a former education minister would allow conditions for teachers to continue to decline.

We have seen this happen in other parts of the world, and witnessed the results. In the United States, NPR recently chalked up the declining enrollment of teachers program to a growing sense that “K-12 teachers simply have less control over their professional lives in an increasingly bitter, politicized environment.”

In the UK, the education secretary has promised to ease unnecessary bureaucracy for teachers following complaints of an unsustainable workload.

In Ontario, we shouldn’t need to be told that teachers matter.

The Liberal platform in the last election called education “the most important investment government can make.”

Roger Martin, the former dean of the Rotman School of Business, warned us years ago that politically motivated cuts were robbing Canada of its education advantage.

I represent more than 50,000 teachers in Ontario — all of whom understand that Premier Wynne can’t say she supports teachers while proposing these changes to the public education system.

We also know that you can’t keep the public in the dark about what’s really at stake.