Month: April 2021

Student support workers call on the UCP to recognize them as critical, front-line workers

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Student Support Staff at Edmonton Public School District are calling on the government to recognize them as critical workers. Members of CUPE Local 3550 are speaking out after a number of education workers were excluded from the Critical Worker Benefit – a $1200 lump sum payment promised to those who have worked on the front lines during the pandemic.

“It’s a slap in the face,” said CUPE Local 3550 President Jorge Illanes. “Throughout this pandemic we have showed up to work, we have sacrificed our health to ensure that students get the critical supports they need and now the UCP tells us we’re not all critical workers.”

Earlier this year, the UCP government announced a new Critical Worker Benefit to compensate essential workers in a range of public and private sectors, including workers in the Education Sector. However, arbitrary eligibility criteria means only a portion of Student Support Staff are eligible, despite them all working on the front lines.

“It’s offensive,” said Illanes. “The government has bungled this entire program. How can we be working shoulder to shoulder throughout the pandemic, and only a portion of us are recognized as critical workers?”

The limiting criteria for the benefit includes a 300-hour threshold that allowed for the exclusion of precarious workers.  These workers are not offered weekly full-time hours, which in the Education Sector is 7 or less hours per day. Other support staff were indiscriminately deemed as non-student contact classifications and were also excluded.  This was done despite the school board arguing in favour of including them and requesting revisions to the government’s criteria.

“We have to speak up. I’m calling on all of our members, and the public to tell the government that education workers are front line workers and call on them to ensure we all receive the Critical Workers Benefit,” said Illanes.

You can join the fight, and send a letter to the UCP by visiting https://3550.cupe.ca/

CUPE AB DELIVERS 30,000 LETTERS TO LEGISLATURE

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CALL ON JASON KENNEY AND THE UCP TO PROTECT PUBLIC HEALTH CARE.

CUPE Alberta delivered 30,000 letters to the Legislature today. The letters, written to MLAs from concerned Alberta citizens, call on the UCP government to stop its attack on public health care.

“We are in the midst of a global pandemic. The government should be doing everything it can to protect our healthcare, instead they’ve picked fights with doctors and nurses, and now they want to fire 11,000 healthcare workers. It’s an indefensible plan that is going to have devastating impacts our health care system,” said CUPE Alberta President Rory Gill.

The UCP government announced in October that it would slash 11,000 health care jobs in Alberta in a move that is expected to create chaos in a system already stretched by the impacts of COVID-19. Gill joined NDP Health Critic David Shepherd and Labour Critic Christina Gray, who have been calling on the UCP to walk back their plan to dismantle Alberta’s healthcare system.

“This is not what Jason Kenney promised Albertans in the last election. He promised to protect public health care. We stand with the thirty thousand Albertans who’ve written letters to the UCP, and the thousands more who are calling on this government to do that right thing, cancel this disastrous plan and protect the public health care Albertans rely on,” said NDP Health Critic David Shepherd.

Gray added, “These are the workers who do the housekeeping, prepare food and provide laboratory services. They have risked their lives during an unprecedented health crisis. Then, the moment the pandemic is over, this government plans to hand them pink slips. It’s unconscionable.”

The letters were delivered to Premier Jason Kenney’s office and will be tabled in the Legislature. CUPE President Rory Gill is calling on all Albertans to make their voices heard and send Jason Kenney a message to stop his attack on the public health care system.

For more information visit: https://www.weworkforalberta.ca/protectalbertahealthcare