We need your help!!

Hello everyone, as we near the end of our contract we need your help to get our messages across. The election is done, and we have our Next Premier. We ask you to head over to OSBCU website and sign the petition to send a letter to our premier and education minister! What issues are most important to you? Is it higher wages? Job security? Let us know what you think is the most important to you! The truth is that governments only take action when they feel pressure from people like you and I.

The first step to us winning the issues that are important includes signing a letter to the Premier of Ontario to ask for increased staffing and wage increases for you and your coworkers.

Your central and local negotiations committees are asking all members to sign the letter to the Premier of Ontario to send a united message.

We need to show the government and your school board that a super majority of you and your coworkers are demanding increases to wages and staffing.

In Solidarity.

Click the link to: Send my letter to the Premier! 

National Indigenous History Month

It is National Indigenous History Month. Throughout the month of June, it is important for us to take the time to stop, acknowledge and honour our Indigenous communities. We do this by recognizing their history, heritage and diversity of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples across Canada. Some ways that we can do this is by, attending an educational event in your area, reading the artwork of Indigenous authors as well as supporting local Indigenous business.

Down below I have added some great websites that are filled with tons of information for you to explore.

These are just a few resources out there that can help you embrace and learn more about Indigenous History Month. I hope everyone takes some time to learn about the land you are on and acknowledge the history and heritage within that.

I would love to end this post with the Upper Grand District School Boards land acknowledgement. The board ranges over a lot of land and we need to acknowledge the resources that the land gives us each and everyday as well as the people we share this land with.

From the Anishinaabe to the Haudenosaunee and the Métis, these treaty lands are steeped in rich Indigenous history and modern traditions. As a community, we have the responsibility to honour and respect the four directions, land, waters, plants, animals and ancestors. Today, this area is home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island. We acknowledge the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation of the Anishinaabek Peoples, on whose ancestral and treaty lands we teach, learn and live.

Here you can find the map that shows how far we reach as well as the boards recourses: UGDSB Indigenous Info

 

Job Postings – June 10,2022

Here are some custodial postings! You can find them on UGShare as well!

Happy PRIDE Month!

Local 256 would love to wish everyone a Happy Pride! 

Every year, 2SLGBTQ+ CUPE members and our allies come together to celebrate Pride and demand an end to homophobia, transphobia and oppression. We once again call on governments and employers to prioritize safety for Two-Spirit, queer, and trans workers.

 

Some festival events in Guelph: spring_festival_poster

Guelph Pride Website: https://guelphpride.com/index.html

Dufferin County Pride: https://www.dufferincounty.ca/events/celebrate-your-awesome-pride-celebration

 

https://cupe.ca/cupe-celebrates-frontline-pride-0?utm_medium=rss

 

Heart in progressive pride colours with text that reads Happy Pride

Education workers tell the ‘get it done premier’: Get a fair deal done now to avoid classroom upheaval in September!

WINDSOR, ON – Frontline education workers are ready to fight for what students need in the classroom and what they need to do their jobs even better.

The day after a provincial election that saw Premier Doug Ford unequivocally assure workers “I’ll always have their backs” and repeatedly promise to “get it done,” and 90 days before the start of the next school year, 55,000 frontline education workers across Ontario are holding him to his word as they serve notice to bargain.

“Now is the time to avert classroom upheaval in September,” said Laura Walton, president of CUPE’s Ontario School Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU). “CUPE education workers are ready to negotiate a contract that protects and expands services for students while raising wages for the lowest paid workers in the education system.”

“It’s within the re-elected premier’s power to avoid more disruption for students this fall,” observed Walton. “He should direct his negotiators to sit down with us right away to hammer out a deal that puts students and workers first.”

Years of systemic and structural underfunding by this Conservative government, and the Liberal government before it, have resulted in understaffing and unsustainably low wages for education workers. The workers’ bargaining demands, if met, would fix these systemic problems to meet students’ needs as well as create good jobs for education workers – twin goals that will benefit all communities throughout the province.

“Custodians need to know there’ll be enough of them to fight the next wave of COVID-19. Clerical Workers go in early and stay late – working unpaid time – to protect students’ safety and ensure smooth operation of our schools. Educational Assistants see that more of them have to be hired to provide the one-on-one supports that students need and parents demand. Early Childhood Educators must be in every kindergarten classroom to give our youngest students the hands-on experiences that four- and five-year-olds crave,” Walton explained.

“It wasn’t lost on the predominantly female school workers that Premier Ford has been focused on jobs in the private sector,” said Walton. “We’re reminding him that we make this province run and we’re done with disrespectful cuts that are driving education workers away.”

“Whether schools across the province are provided enough money to stop damaging cuts is a political choice made by our elected representatives,” said Walton. “Ontario is the richest province in Canada and the money controlled by only 59 billionaires has increased by more than $100 billion during the pandemic. There’s no excuse for this government to skimp on our children’s future.”

Quick Facts:

  • 55,000 frontline education workers are serving notice to bargain with the Ontario government and Council of Trustees’ Associations. Notice to bargain centrally given by CUPE’s Ontario School Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU) to the Council of Trustees’ Associations also serves as notice to bargain locally with 63 English and French-language public and Catholic school boards.
  • The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) calculates that the Ford Progressive Conservative government cut education funding by $800 per student (adjusted for inflation) over its first term. With two million students in Ontario’s schools, that translates into a $1.6 billion cut in funding in the 2021-2022 school year – money that could be used to improve supports for students, increase staffing levels, and raise the wages of education workers.
  • Education workers deserve a raise. The past decade has seen education workers’ wages fall substantially below inflation. In no small part this is because of legislative interference with free collective bargaining that used the power of the state to limit wage improvements for the lowest paid employees in the education sector. Bill 115 under the previous Liberal government froze wages for two years. Bill 124 under the current Progressive Conservative government imposed a strict limit of 1% increases per year for three years, even though all evidence pointed to the fact that this would be lower than inflation and was lower than the trends for other unionized sectors of the economy.
  • The result of these attacks on education workers’ wages and collective bargaining rights has been wage settlements from 2012-2021 that equal 8.8% (compounded) while inflation to the end of 2021 has totaled 19.5%. With inflation well over 6% in 2022 this will jump to a 17% wage cut for education workers. This gap between wage increases and inflation has been imposed on workers who are necessary to the proper functioning of the education system – the people who provide vital direct and indirect services to students so students’ schools work for them. Wage restraint has been imposed on workers, 84.2% of whom earn less than $50,000 a year, and 96.6% earn less than $60,000 per year.

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 education assistants, school library workers, administrative assistants, custodians and tradespeople, early childhood educators, child and youth workers, instructors, nutrition service workers, audio-visual technologists, school safety monitors, and social workers.

– 30 –

Contact:

Ken Marciniec

CUPE Communications

kmarciniec@cupe.ca

416-803-6066 (cell)

 

Source: CUPE Ontario

https://cupe.on.ca/education-workers-tell-the-get-it-done-premier-get-a-fair-deal-done-now/?fbclid=IwAR1OubeVUsG8Gt407jubpY3OIEbWQlE7-eLdIvbl1x1wUA1uvhg3gdynbkc&fs=e&s=cl

VOTING DAY!

Today, June 2/2022 is voting day!

Head out to your local polling centre today and cast your vote!