LILLEY: School union threatens strike but Ford gov’t says they’ll legislate to keep kids in class
CUPE #CUPE
On Sunday morning, CUPE, the union representing educational support workers issued their five-day notice of strike action. It meant that by this coming Friday, custodians, secretaries, educational assistants and others could have been walking the picket line shutting schools across the province.
By Sunday evening the union was crying foul that Education Minister Stephen Lecce was ready to introduce back-to-work legislation and impose a contract.
“Stephen Lecce has been on a path to legislate rather than negotiate,” said Laura Walton, president of the Ontario School Board Council of Unions, a division of CUPE representing school support workers.
CUPE is asking for annual wage increases of 11.7% over four years, something that would amount to a 55% wage increase over the life of the contract. The Ford government issued a statement as Walton was speaking, saying that they had boosted their wage offer to a 2.5% increase for those on the salary grid earning less than $43,000 and 1.5% for everyone else.
“I do not think it’s generous to keep the people who are at the poverty line at the poverty line,” Walton said in response to the government’s wage offer.
For the government’s part, they said their main goal is to keep kids in class and when CUPE rejected their most recent offer, they were left with no choice.
“Because CUPE refuses to withdraw their intent to strike, in order to avoid shutting down classes we will have no other choice but to introduce legislation,” Lecce said in a statement.
Over the past several months, CUPE has done a fairly decent job of spreading the word that their average member earns just $39,000 per year. That’s not a lot of money but it’s only part of the story, one that includes part-time workers dragging down the average compared to others making a decent living.
Wages aren’t as low as CUPE claims
A head custodian with the Toronto District School Board can earn more than $34 per hour while a stock clerk at the warehouse earns more than $25 per hour, according to the contract. In Ottawa’s Catholic board, CUPE members working jobs like finance clerk can earn $62,000 per year while an educational assistant earns $43,000 for 10 months of work.
That’s part of the story that CUPE isn’t telling in their PR war with the government, many of these jobs are 10 months at best. In fact, the contract with the Ottawa Catholic School Board specifically says that some jobs are 194 days of work and just six hours of work per day.
It’s these workers, the ones working part of a day for part of the year that CUPE is using to try and get a huge pay raise for everyone and it’s a non-starter. We know that the government offered to boost their offer, we haven’t heard from CUPE that they are willing to come down from an 11.7% annual increase.
If that kind of wage increase went through, it wouldn’t just be the lowest paid workers getting the boost — the custodian in Toronto would be earning $53 per hour at the end of the contract while the finance clerk in Ottawa would be earning $96,000 per year.
Would teachers, who currently earn an average of $93,000, accept making the less than the custodian or finance clerk? Giving teachers a 55% increase over four years would see the average teacher earning more than $144,000 in four years.
Those kinds of wage increases would be unfair to impose on taxpayers who definitely aren’t seeing similar wage increases.
CUPE shouldn’t be surprised that after threatening to strike they are facing back to work legislation. After COVID interrupted school over the last three years, there is no mood for any further interruptions due to strikes. They played their hand badly.