MEDIA ADVISORY: Ontario education workers to provide update on bargaining

TORONTO, ON –/COMMUNITYWIRE/– CUPE’s Ontario School Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU) president Laura Walton will provide an update, via Zoom, about frontline education workers’ bargaining for student success and good jobs.

WHO:

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

WHAT:

• Education workers’ update from the bargaining table

WHEN:

• Friday, October 7 – 1:00 p.m.

WHERE:

• Register in advance for this media availability via Zoom.
  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwsc-yhqzItEtNortQxkTBU1I7VaZMDC_g1

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 and 60% are laid off every summer.

The lowest-paid frontline education workers have already taken a 10.7% wage cut from 2012 to 2021.

According to a Financial Accountability Office report published last week, education workers stand to lose another 11.3% over the next three years, meaning the Ford government’s policies will amount to the lowest-paid education workers taking a 22% wage cut over a 13-year period.

Education workers’ wage proposal is an increase of $3.25 per hour each year in a three-year collective agreement. The Ford government’s offer was just 33¢ to 53¢ an hour – the cost of less than one tank of gas per month.

-30-

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)