MEDIA ADVISORY: Ontario education workers to release results of strike vote

TORONTO, ON –/COMMUNITYWIRE/– Ontario’s 55,000 frontline education workers have been exercising their democratic rights as union members by taking part in their strike vote that opened on Friday, September 23 and will close on Sunday, October 2.

As the workers’ central bargaining committee prepares to return to the table on October 6 to continue trying to negotiate their next collective agreement with the Ford government and the Council of Trustees’ Associations (CTA), CUPE-Ontario School Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU) president Laura Walton will release the vote results on Monday.

“My coworkers and I have great proposals to settle on the table that are reasonable, necessary, and affordable,” said Laura Walton. “These proposals come from what frontline education workers and families across the province say we need to improve the quality of children’s education and to make education jobs something school boards can actually retain and recruit people to do. Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce have the power and resources to accept our proposals. They could and should do that today.”

“This vote is about education workers throughout Ontario showing the government that we stand behind our excellent proposals – and will continue to stand behind them,” added Walton. “It’s time for the Ford government to stop playing games, rescind their out of touch offer, and accept our reasonable, necessary, and affordable proposals.”

WHAT:	Announcement of education workers’ strike vote results
WHO:	Laura Walton, educational assistant and president of CUPE-OSBCU Christine Couture, library technician and vice-president of CUPE-OSBCU Angela Brandt, president, Ontario Autism Coalition and other frontline education workers.
WHEN:	Monday, October 3 – 10:00 a.m.
WHERE:	Queen’s Park media studio Legislative Building, Rm 149 111 Wellesley St. W., Toronto, ON, M7A 1A2

Quick Facts:

Ontario’s 55,000 frontline education workers are paid on average only $39,000 per year.

More than 70% are women.

More than half work at least one additional job to make ends meet and 60% are laid off every summer.

From 2012 to 2021, the lowest-paid education worker have already taken an 11% wage cut.

Workers’ wage proposal is an increase of $3.25 per hour. The Ford government’s offer was just 33¢ to 53¢ an hour – the equivalent of the cost of less than one tank of gas per month.

Education workers are bargaining for guarantees of:

• enough educational assistants so all students would get the supports they need and so schools could stop sending kids home because there isn’t an EA available

• an early childhood educator in every kindergarten classroom so every four- and five-year-old would get the play based learning support that’s especially necessary now after two years of pandemic isolation

• enough library workers to make sure school libraries are open and reading opportunities are available to kids all the time

• enough custodians to keep schools clean and enough maintenance workers and tradespeople to begin to tackle the $16 billion repair backlog

• adequate staffing of secretaries in school offices and enough lunchroom supervisors to keep students safe

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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)