Ontario education workers, parents and students share what’s at stake with the strike

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The latest

• CUPE to end education worker strikes in Ontario after Ford repeals Bill 28
• Spokesman for the TDSB said schools are set to reopen on Tuesday
• Follow along for the more important updates on the walkout and ongoing negotiations with our reporters

About 55,000 education workers in Ontario – early childhood educators, library technicians, school maintenance workers and educational assistants, among others – launched a walkout on Friday that shut down schools across the province.

On Thursday, in response to a strike threat by the Canadian Union for Public Employees, the provincial government passed back-to-work legislation that imposed a contract on the workers. It also included a notwithstanding clause in the legislation, effectively preventing the union from using the courts to oppose it.

The workers have been subject to a three-year wage increase cap, which has seen them garner wage hikes of one-per-cent annually since 2019, well below the rate of inflation.

The union was asking for a 6-per-cent annual wage increase over the next four years. The province’s legislation imposes a contract that includes 2.5-per-cent annual wage hikes for workers earning less than $43,000, and 1.5 per cent for those earning more.

The Globe and Mail spoke to some of the workers from across the province – about their jobs, salaries and what’s at stake for them – as well as parents and students affected by the strike.

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Patrick Laplante, 53

• City: Ottawa
• Occupation: Library technician
• Years of service: 15
• Salary: $46,000

When a child at one of the schools Patrick Laplante works at is going through a tough time – sickness in the family, rejection by friends, their parents’ divorce – they may not be willing to chat with an adult about it. But Mr. Laplante, a library technician, prides himself on always finding a book to recommend to help them through their struggle.

This week, when primary students expressed their nervousness about the planned CUPE strike, he suggested Click, Clack, Moo by Doreen Cronin, a picture book about a group of cows who find a typewriter and write to their farmer about how they feel they’ve been treated unfairly and want changes on the farm. “It’s a great way of letting them know, without pushing an agenda, why would people go out on strike,” he said.

The reasons for striking are simple for him: He wonders whether the school board will even find anyone to replace him after he retires in a few years. He and his fellow library technicians are laid off each summer, and that lack of job security has driven many colleagues to move to public libraries, where they enjoy better pay and benefits.

“The working conditions are so poor that young folks don’t want to get in on this job,” he said.

– Dakshana Bascaramurty

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Ejaaz Idris, 30

• City: Richmond Hill
• Occupation: Lead field technology analyst
• Years of service: five
• Salary: $60,200

Ejaaz Idris knows that people doing the same job as him who work for the municipality, or in the private sector, have starting salaries that are $20,000 to $30,000 more than what he makes. But one perk has kept him working for the York Region District School Board year after year: Whenever he’s summoned into a kindergarten classroom to fix a smart board (they fail often), he gets a hero’s reception.

“It’s like a scene out of the Minions movie because you have these little ones just jumping up and down and cheering you on,” he says.

But that perk can’t pay his bills, which have been steadily rising. His landlord of four years has applied to the province’s Landlord and Tenant Board to raise Mr. Idris’s rent by 4.5 per cent (which is 2 per cent above the provincial limit). And while the amount Mr. Idris spends on fuel driving to and from school has increased annually, the amount he can claim for mileage with his employer has not changed in three years.

Work has been busier than ever since the pandemic, because he now has all the classroom technology to service plus the thousands of Chromebooks that became standard educational tools during the pandemic and are still in use. It’s prompted Mr. Idris to start looking for work elsewhere.

“It’s more of a pain on the inside, it’s a mental toll: Do I abandon these people, these children? At some point, you have to be selfish and look out for yourself.”

– Dakshana Bascaramurty

CUPE’s initial wage ask ambitious but expected when inflation is considered, labour relations experts say

OPINION: Educational assistants make it possible for children to learn. For that, they deserve a living wage

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Jessica Sheahan, 34

• City: Ottawa
• Occupation: Early childhood educator
• Years of Service: 12
• Salary: $44,000

For more than a decade, Jessica Sheahan has seen her annual salary increase by just a couple of hundred dollars a year on average – yet she is determined to keep working with kindergarten-aged children because of how much they need her expertise. Early childhood educators such as Ms. Sheahan help design play-based learning methods for children between the ages of four and six. “I’m in my midthirties and at the moment, my salary is maxed out for the rest of my career. Every year, more is expected of us, but our compensation remains roughly the same,” she said.

When schools were closed during the pandemic, Ms. Sheahan played a crucial role in teaching young kids how to use computers and tablet devices – a task she describes as difficult. Now that these same kids are returning to the classroom, she can see the immense impact the pandemic has had on their social skills and learning abilities.

Ms. Sheahan sees a strike as the only way for people such as herself to remain in their jobs. “Every summer, I contemplate leaving this job. And every year, I see people leaving this field in droves. We’re not asking for much, we just want to be paid our worth.”

– Vanmala Subramaniam

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Yamilka Marim, 55

• City: Thunder Bay
• Occupation: Custodian
• Years of service: four
• Salary: less than $30,000

Yamilka Marim is in charge of cleaning her school, including the junior and senior kindergarten classrooms – a job she says she loves. A self-described crazy cleaning lady (”ask my husband,” she says), Ms. Marim is meticulous in her work, ensuring all the spots within reach of little hands are kept clean. “As a little kid they touch everything, you need to clean everything – chairs, tables, floors, carpets, bathrooms.”

The mother of a civil engineer and a university student says she’s worried about the increase in the costs of living, and has been looking at how to make more money. “Everything is so expensive now,” she says.

Ms. Marim wants to see more custodial staff in place with appropriate hours for their workloads, and a better salary to reflect the inflation, but she isn’t very optimistic.

– Willow Fiddler

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Michelle Campbell, 52

• City: York Region
• Occupation: Educational Assistant
• Years of service: 17
• Salary: $40,200

Michelle Campbell fought back tears as she said goodbye to students on Thursday. “I just feel so bad,” said Ms. Campbell, who works with children from kindergarten to Grade 8, many of whom have behaviour issues.

Ms. Campbell can’t afford to live in York Region where she works – she rents an apartment in Barrie, where one of the two paycheques she gets a month still isn’t enough to cover the rent – but her job has always been immensely rewarding.

“It’s one of the most enriching jobs, which is why I don’t leave it,” she says. “To be able to help kids and see their growth – I love the kids.”

But the stresses of the job and its financial realities have made Ms. Campbell wonder how long she can remain in the profession.

“I don’t think I can continue doing this for much longer at this rate of pay. Especially when you know everybody’s dying to have employees and I can find another job, I think, pretty easily.”

She would like to see CUPE workers get a cost-of-living raise and more funding for schools. All education workers are stretched so thin these days that they are already as exhausted as they typically are at the end of a school year, Ms. Campbell says.

“It’s November and everyone I know is June tired. I just don’t know how we’re going to continue at this pace.”

– Dave McGinn

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Elaine Stupp

• City: Thornhill
• Role: Parent

“I just keep hoping it’s a bad dream and that schools will open,” says Elaine Stupp, a mother of twin daughters in Grade 10.

The uncertainty of how long the strike will last is stressful, says Ms. Stupp, a chartered accountant who describes herself as “mostly a full-time mom.” But for her, it is the disruption to children’s learning that is the hardest part of the strike to deal with.

“They need the structure of the school day. They need to know that it’s there for them every day, and that they’re not falling behind,” she says.

That consistency is more important than ever after the many disruptions of the past 2½ years, Ms. Stupp says. “They want to move forward and see their friends and go to school. So yeah, this is going to be hard.”

Ms. Stupp hopes a fair deal can be worked out in time for kids to return to school on Monday. While her daughters did online learning at points throughout the pandemic, they did not enjoy it. They want to be with their friends, and learning in a classroom.

– Dave McGinn

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Saanvi Gupta

• City: Brampton
• Role: Grade 12 student

Saanvi Gupta’s entire high-school experience has been coloured by disruption, mostly because of the pandemic. She spent Friday doing asynchronous learning at home as a result of the CUPE strike; many tasks and assignments had been changed around in anticipation of students being out of class. “That’s really stressful for us,” she said.

Earlier in the week, some of her teachers talked about the planned labour disruption and shared their support for their colleagues who would be on the picket lines, explaining to students that they were not paid well enough and deserved support. Saanvi, 16, has also heard the issue discussed on TV and social media, and between her parents.

She hasn’t taken a side in the dispute – all her feelings are tied to how it’s affecting her final year of high school. She worries that if the strike continues into next week, after-school clubs will be cancelled. She’s also concerned about how disrupted classes could impact her university applications in the coming months.

“From a student perspective we’re so tired of all this,” she said. “I think at the end of the day, all I want is for there to be a fair agreement between them. And not just the government and the education workers, but also thinking about the parents and students that are affected.”

– Dakshana Bascaramurty

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Andrew MacDonald

• City: Toronto
• Role: Parent

On Friday, Andrew MacDonald opened an e-mail from his daughter’s teacher asking parents to make sure their children have equipment ready for online learning come Monday if the strike is still going on.

Mr. MacDonald’s 11-year-old daughter has all the equipment she needs – and actually thrived doing online learning in the pandemic. But if the strike is still happening next week, there is no way she’ll be doing school online.

Doing so would be tantamount to crossing a picket line, says Mr. MacDonald, a producer in the entertainment industry.

The possibility of not returning to school makes his daughter feel “a bit depressed,” he says. But he believes that education workers, praised during the pandemic, are now being treated unfairly.

“They were calling them essential workers during the pandemic. Right, right. If education is essential then make them essential workers. But they don’t want to do that. Because in a case like this it would go to an arbitrator who would actually look at the stuff and look into labour laws and precedent and say, these people are terribly underpaid.”

– Dave McGinn

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Vasu Bhardwaj

• City: Whitby
• Role: Grade 10 student

Up until Friday, this school year was a much-welcomed return to normalcy for Vasu Bhardwaj, a Grade 10 student. He was back in the classroom, back with his friends, back to in-person meetings with the business and health-sciences clubs he’s part of.

“One day won’t do much. But I think if this continues it’ll provide a disruption to the classroom,” says Vasu, president of the Ontario High School Conservative Association.

Online learning just isn’t as good as in-classroom instruction, he says.

“It definitely doesn’t show your true work ethic, your true grades, and it definitely takes a toll on your overall mental health because you’re not having that same interaction with teachers, your friends.”

Vasu, 15, hopes a deal can be reached over the weekend that gets kids back to their classrooms and is fair to CUPE workers.

“The cost of living has gone skyrocketing. And it’s pretty high at this point. And it’s no debate that the education workers do need a raise. It’s just, where is enough?”

– Dave McGinn