MEDIA ADVISORY: Ontario education workers to hold media briefing on bargaining

Event Information

Begins: 16 September 2022 @ 12:30 PM
Location: Toronto, ON (virtual)

TORONTO, ON –/COMMUNITYWIRE/– CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU) returned to the bargaining table after a three-week hiatus due to delays by Ford government negotiators.

Educational assistant and CUPE-OSBCU president Laura Walton will be available to talk with journalists via Zoom during the lunch hour.

WHO: 
• Laura Walton, educational assistant and president of CUPE’s Ontario
• School Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU)

WHAT:
• Education workers media availability

WHEN:
• Friday, September 16 – 12:30 p.m.

WHERE:
• Register in advance for this media availability via Zoom.
• https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvc-itrjwtE9Jf1iCMFLtxqugBQimWJEB-

More than 70% of Ontario’s 55,000 frontline education workers are women. The average annual pay for this group of workers is $39,000.

More than half work at least one additional job to make ends meet, 60% are laid off every summer, 27% have had to cut back on food and 24% struggle to pay for gas or public transit.

From 2012 to 2021, education workers’ wages increased only 8.8%, while inflation was 19.5%. In other words, the lowest-paid frontline education workers have already taken a 10.7% wage cut.

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The Ontario School Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU) unites 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) who work in the public, Catholic, English, and French school systems throughout Canada’s largest province. OSBCU members are educational assistants, early childhood educators, school library workers, child and youth workers, administrative assistants, secretaries, custodians and tradespeople, instructors, nutrition service workers, audio-visual technologists, information technology professionals, school safety monitors, cafeteria workers, social workers, and more.

For more information, contact:

Ken Marciniec
CUPE Communications
kmarciniec@cupe.ca
416-803-6066 (cell)