'A bit of a shock': Province's letter to early childhood educators raises concerns

The head of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union is trying to downplay the impact a grievance filed by the union could have on hundreds of early childhood educators currently staffing the pre-primary program in Nova Scotia.

"There's not going to be mass layoffs where everybody loses their jobs," Paul Wozney said Monday afternoon.

The NSTU filed the grievance 16 months ago.

But, on Friday, a Department of Justice lawyer sent a letter to every pre-primary early child educator in the province, warning them their jobs might be in jeopardy.

"If the NSTU grievance succeeds, a potential result is that all ECEs would be replaced by certified teachers," said the letter signed by Erin Cain. "The Department feels strongly in their position of opposing this grievance.

"The Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Education … has taken the position that the Pre-Primary Program is correctly staffed by Early Childhood Educators."

Wozney said the union was only trying to protect its members and wasn't after anyone else's job.

"From our perspective what we are hoping now is that we see teachers added to the staffing mix," he said.

Wozney understands why letter is upsetting

He said he understands why the letter is upsetting.

"It floats the possibility that everybody that got a job under this program, it feels like you're highly likely to lose your job outright, and all these positions will cease to exist for ECEs, and those greedy teachers are going to take them all," he said. "Our position was never that these positions should be exclusively NSTU positions." 

Wozney called the letter from the province "a bit of a shock" given union staff and government officials were supposed to meet Tuesday to come up with a common communications strategy for the arbitration set to start July 15.

Premier Stephen McNeil defended the letter Monday, describing it as "laying out there what the NSTU would like to have happen."

Heather Fairbairn, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, said in an email that early childhood educators are the right people to deliver the pre-primary program. The letter was meant to give them notice of the grievance arbitration and potential impact on their employment if the NSTU is successful.

The Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union and CUPE were sending letters to their ECE members on March 29, but the province said it was sending letters to those not represented by a union (South Shore and Tri-County) at the same time.

The NSTU grievance states positions in the pre-primary program are NSTU bargaining unit positions and should be staffed by teachers, but there is no reference to a mix of teachers and ECEs, the provincial spokesperson noted.

There are approximately 411 full-time equivalent positions in the pre-primary program in the seven regional centres for education and Conseil scolaire acadien provincial, according to the province.

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