Today is Day 5 of the support-workers’ strike in the Saanich School District, making it a full week off school for close to 8,000 students.
About 500 members of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 441 are on picket lines throughout the district, seeking wage parity with those in similar jobs in neighbouring school districts. Jobs affected include education assistants, custodians and maintenance staff.
The union has pointed out that education assistants in the Saanich district make $21.61 per hour, versus the $25.28 an hour in Sooke and $25.20 in Greater Victoria.
That sort of difference in pay can lead to problems, said Don Peterson, president of the Saanich Teachers’ Association, whose approximately 600 teachers are honouring the CUPE picket line.
He said Saanich teachers — who aren’t being paid while they honour CUPE pickets — know there is a shortage of education assistants, and the Saanich district is having a tough time attracting them. “When there’s a shortage of labour and one of the employers pays significantly less, the results can be disastrous.”
In some cases, Saanich district has lost education assistants to the Greater Victoria and Sooke districts, he said. “They don’t even need to relocate their families to get that pay increase.”
Peterson said as a result of job action in 2005 and a round of bargaining in 2006, teachers won harmonized pay grids throughout B.C. The pay grids were calculated by figuring out an average and making sure locals below that were brought up to the average, while those above stayed where they were. “Fourteen years later that’s what CUPE is still trying to get.”
He said the “arbitrary provincial structure” put in place by the province for negotiations is making things difficult for CUPE 441 to get a contract.
The district has said that the funding available for bargaining is set by the province.
The Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association weighed in on the situation, saying the negotiation system allows for extra funds “to address existing, chronic labour-market challenges.”
That provision has been used elsewhere in bargaining, the association said.
Saanich School Board vice-chairwoman Elsie McMurphy said such funds have been considered, but so far haven’t been enough to resolve the situation.
“There does seem to be some messaging that says there’s more money there, but the board won’t access it,” she said. “If there’s more money there, we don’t know about it.”
McMurphy said there are a lot of people looking at ways to solve the impasse.
“Everybody is working as hard as they can to try and bring this thing together.”
