FORT MCMURRAY – Striking school support workers at Fort McMurray Public and Catholic school districts will expand their job action starting Tuesday.

The strike which began November 13, 2024, has up until now been rotating job action. As of Tuesday morning, all members of CUPE Locals 2545 and 2559 will be on strike and the strike will continue until a contract is settled.

CUPE Alberta President Rory Gill said the expansion of the job action is due to the fact the provincial government has not acted to address the poor wages of school support workers.  The average school support worker in Alberta earns just $34,500.

“The wages of these workers haven’t improved in over a decade,” said Gill. “They need a substantial increase to make up the ground lost to inflation.”

Gill warned that if the Alberta government doesn’t act soon, other workers at other school districts will follow soon.

The Fort McMurray locals want to give notice to parents and students who will be impacted by the escalated job action. Efforts were made to push the job action past the holidays.

“We understand the impact this will have on students, especially special needs students,” said Gill. “However, students are being negatively affected by high turnover of staff. A good education requires well paid, satisfied support staff.”

EDMONTON – a group of 285 employees of Edmonton Public School District voted to join the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3550.

In an Alberta Labour Board vote last week, the group of employees voted 73.4% to join the union. They will join other non-teaching employees at the district as part of CUPE.

The new CUPE members include specialized support workers in areas of diversity, including adaptive physical education, assistive technology, audiology, deaf or hard of hearing, education behaviour, English as another language, intercultural, mental health, occupational therapy, physical therapy, reading, sexual orientation and gender identity, speech-language pathology, psychology, school family liaison, social work, vision and braille.

CUPE Alberta President Rory Gill said the workers joined the union after efforts to collaborate with the employer were not solving their issues.  Gill said the workers wanted to unionize to give them a collective voice at the table regarding workplace issues.

“As part of the largest union in Canada, these workers will have all the resources and strength CUPE has to offer,” said Gill.

Over 1000 education support workers in CUPE Locals 2559 and 2545 are on their second day of picketing as negotiations remain stalled by the Government of Alberta’s constrained bargaining directives to school divisions.

“Parents and students are joining us on the picket line because they know this fight is about them and the services they need.”

“The provincial government is controlling what school divisions can agree to in wages at the bargaining table and restricting education budgets, effectively squeezing the school board and putting funding shortfalls on the backs of students and the workers delivering critical education support services. It’s shameful”, said Rory Gill, President of CUPE Alberta.

The Provincial Bargaining and Compensation Office (PBCO) set up by the province is a third party at local school division bargaining tables across Alberta, mandating a strict cap on wages. This interference in free and fair collective bargaining has resulted in the members of four other CUPE locals taking similar decisive strike votes. Instead of lifting these wage mandates, the province has been intervening in the strike process by forcing locals that gave strike notice into a Disputes Inquiry Board (DIB) process. Members of Locals 2559 and 2545 in Fort McMurray voted down the recent DIB recommendations by 93% and 95.5%.

“The provincial government is hoping we will just give up and accept poverty wages so they can keep shortchanging our community”, said Lynn Fleet, President of CUPE Local 2545, “but our membership and community of parents who care about access to quality education are getting stronger by the day in this fight for fairness.”

Following these two days of picketing on November 13^th and 14^th, members of CUPE Locals 2559 and 2545 will return to work for one day, then begin rolling strikes on November 18^th.

“This can all be solved by the province deciding to stop imposing poverty wages,” said President of CUPE Local 2559 Danielle Danis. “Parents and students are joining us on the picket line because they know this fight is about them and the services they need.”