Employer demands two-year wage freeze: CUPE
Education support workers in the Regina Public School Division voted 95 per cent on July 2 in favour of job action.
The local has been bargaining for more than two years and little progress has been made, said the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
“The Regina Public School Board continues to push concessions that will hurt our members,” said Jackie Christianson, president of CUPE 3766. “They are attacking our health and dental benefits, our severance, retirement gratuity and trying to limit our ability to present grievances to the board of trustees.”
The Regina Public School Division is pushing a two-year wage freeze and low wage increases in years three to five, said the union.
“Our members are already the lowest paid in the school division, and many of us don’t even make a living wage. We have not received a raise in over four years, but school board trustees gave themselves a 22.7 per cent pay increase effective Jan. 1, 2019, not to mention the massive wage increase earned by top school board administrators,” said Christianson.
The union has outstanding proposals that the school division is refusing to address, including improvements to occupational health and safety language, said CUPE.
Bargaining has been challenging across the K-12 school system due to drastic cuts from the provincial government. In that last several years, the Regina Public School Board has cut specialized student programs, student access to school libraries and has charged parents for their children to eat lunch at school, said the union.
