Union for striking Halifax-area school support workers reaches tentative agreement

The union representing 1,800 school support workers has reached a tentative contract agreement with the Halifax Regional Centre for Education that could bring an end to a five-week strike.

CUPE Local 5047 announced the deal in a news release on Wednesday afternoon.

"This agreement was made possible by the fierce determination of school support staff in [Halifax Regional Municipality], whose strike action forced government and the HRCE back to the bargaining table," CUPE Local 5047 president Chris Melanson said in the news release.

The agreement offers "one possible step toward the change we need to see in the education sector," Melanson said.

No details about the agreement are being released until union members have the chance to see and vote on it. Members will be notified of vote locations and times directly, according to the release.

'They love the kids'

In an interview on Thursday morning, Melanson said Halifax Regional Centre for Education did bring something to the table the union "hadn't seen before."

"So we did use that opportunity to reinforce our members' asks," Melanson told CBC's Information Morning Nova Scotia. 

"We did discuss it. We did analyze it, but we used it as an opportunity to talk about the issues, and though we didn't see that or go in the direction that the government wanted, we did continue the talks and we were able to try to land in a different spot."

During the strike, hundreds of students with disabilities have been unable to attend school. Although the Halifax Regional Centre for Education has been able to hire some replacement workers and parents have been allowed into schools to provide support, it has not been enough to get all students back into classrooms.

The strike also shut down the pre-primary program for Halifax-area schools, resulting in 3,000 additional students not being able to attend classes.

Melanson said the job action was tough on members, but showed their determination.

"They stood together and and raised their profile," he said. "They don't do this to get rich. They do it because they can and they love their jobs. They love the kids."

Result of vote expected this weekend

In an email to parents, Halifax Regional Centre for Education executive director Steve Gallagher said it's expected the result of the vote will be known by Sunday.

"If the members accept the agreement, all pre-primary children, and students who have not been able to safely attend school without EPAs at work, can return to school on Monday, June 19," he wrote.

Kevin Cunningham has a son in Grade 3 who has not been able to attend school during the strike. He said the situation has been been disruptive.

"He thrives on routine, so he needs that kind of consistency," Cunningham said in an interview. "He needs the activity. He needs to be included."

Cunningham has argued a strike that results in a segment of students being unable to attend school amounts to a violation of their human rights. There should have been a plan in place to ensure all students could continue attending school during the strike, he said.

"We think it's worth pursuing — the human rights angle — if for any other reason just to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Whether that is the end result I don't know, but it needs to be an issue."

Rising cost of living at issue

The job action by early childhood educators, educational programming assistants and other support staff followed a vote by members to reject a previous tentative agreement that was recommended by CUPE.

Although union locals for the province's other regional centres for education accepted that deal, members of CUPE Local 5047 who live in the Halifax area said the three-year wage increase did not cover the increased cost of living they've faced in recent years.

Premier Tim Houston and Education Minister Becky Druhan have said the government met all the contract demands CUPE brought to the bargaining table in reaching the initial agreement, including wage parity for school support workers across the province.

The wage scale used to establish parity was in some cases what support workers were making in the Halifax region. That led those workers to argue they would not see the kind of increases their colleagues in the rest of the province were getting.

The two sides returned to the bargaining table last Friday.

"It is only because of CUPE members' job action that there was any willingness from government to make improvements on the deal members rejected decisively in May," Melanson said in the news release.