CUPE workers in Halifax can return to school on Monday

No one is discussing the details of a tentative agreement between striking school counselors and the Halifax Regional Center for Education (HRCE), but hopes remain that 1,860 workers will be back to work by Monday.

“CUPE had asked to go back to the table and the work was being done at the table and we believe collective bargaining should take place there,” Treasury Secretary Allan MacMaster said during a media availability Thursday after a cabinet meeting.

“At this point, we know they’re going to vote on an agreement that is fully endorsed and recommended by their leadership,” MacMaster said. “The next stage for them is to see it and vote on it.”

That process is expected to take place over the weekend.

“Hopefully all these education support staff will be back on Monday. I know they want to go back to school and I know that parents would like their children to go back to school and we as a government would like to see that too.”

Long ago

Parents of children with special needs who were unable to attend school during the strike because they needed one-to-one educational support say a return to school is long overdue.

“If members vote to accept the tentative deal, it means that Lucy and the other 599 children with disabilities affected by the strike will finally be able to return to full-time learning, with their trusted support team,” said Heather Langley, whose family, including 11-year-old Lucy, lives in Clayton Park.

“I don’t feel like there are any winners in this,” Langley said. “Kids like Lucy have lost five weeks of school, and many have regressed. They come back with only a week and a half left in the school year.

“Support staff have lost wages in the last five weeks and I understand the new agreement is only marginally better than the original offer. The government has sent a strong message to the marginalized communities affected by the strike, including the predominantly female support staff, that they are not valued and that inclusive education is not a priority for this government.”

Lucy has a rare syndrome with severe physical and intellectual problems and a severe form of epilepsy. She is autistic and non-verbal.

Sporadic schedule

Lucy’s schedule has been sporadic since the strike began on May 10 as HRCE scrambled to accommodate students with special needs.

During the first two weeks of the strike, Lucy was banned from attending classes at Burton Ettinger Elementary in Fairview and during the third week, she was dropped off at school by family for less than two hours in the afternoon and taken back home by bus.

Lucy has been going to school for an hour every morning for the past two weeks and is picked up and dropped off at home by bus.

Langley said Lucy was supported by learning center teachers without the help of support staff, so she couldn’t get water or food and couldn’t be helped with diapers and toileting.

“Lucy couldn’t work on many of her educational goals because they revolve around teaching life skills like self-feeding and toileting,” Langley said.

Langley said she took nearly three weeks off from work during the strike, mainly because her husband is a firefighter who has been training and battling the wildfires in the Halifax area.

“Many families, including ours, continue to conduct human rights complaints and inquiries through the Ombudsman’s office,” Langley said.

“We feel let down by our government that allowed our children to be discriminated against while they sat back and did nothing.”

Incredible impact

Prime Minister Tim Houston said on Thursday the work stoppage has had an incredible impact on families and students, but added that the government negotiated in good faith to avoid a work stoppage.

“They (union) decided to take action and that is their right, but they are doing it knowing that it will have an impact on families and students,” Houston said.

“Now we have a new preliminary agreement and I am hopeful that the CUPE members will support their executive who stands behind the preliminary agreement,” he said.

The striking CUPE Supporters are employed as Education Program Assistants (EPAs), Assistive Technology Support Workers, Child and Youth Care Practitioners, Mi’kmaq and Indigenous Student Support Staff, African Nova Scotia Support Staff, Schools Plus Community Workers, Library Specialists and Early Childhood Education Educators childhood.

The Department of Education had reached a tentative agreement earlier this spring with the negotiating teams for all eight CUPE negotiating units representing 5,400 public school supporters across the province.

The other seven units accepted the deal.

CUPE Local 5047 members who work in 136 Halifax-area elementary, middle and high schools operated by HRCE voted against that deal, saying they need higher wages than the 6.5 percent increase being offered over the duration of a three-year contract.

Local 5047 president Chris Melanson gave no details on the tentative deal on Thursday, but he said last week before negotiations resumed that the union had adjusted its original wage demand and was waiting for the employer to accept that offer.

MacMaster on Thursday reiterated what Houston and Education Secretary Becky Druhan have said in the past, that CUPE’s leadership initially came to the table looking for pay parity, meaning it doesn’t matter where you live in the county, if you do the same job. , you should be paid the same.

Houston and Druhan said the Halifax local resident wanted to undo the work accomplished on pay equality.

“That’s (equality of pay) a principle that was important to both sides,” MacMaster said.

The minister does not want to say whether the government, the financier of HRCE and the other education centers, has softened the wage bill in order to reach the provisional deal. MacMaster would not say whether a higher wage offer should then be made for the seven CUPE support work units that have already signed the previous tentative agreement.

“I think we should wait until after the vote, then everyone knows what’s in it,” he said.