The union representing school support workers in British Columbia recently launched a TV ad campaign to put pressure on the provincial government before the two sides return to the bargaining table next week.
Local CUPE president Marcel Marsolais said the ads are meant to be a way for the union to make a stand without calling a strike.
"We are hoping to avert a strike. It's the last place we want to go," he said. "The last
thing we want to do is shut down schools."
The union's collective agreement expired in June 2012. They go back into bargaining the first week of September, Marsolais said.
But, he warned, if a contract isn't hammered out soon, union members would be ready to picket.
"We are hoping for the best in the next few days and the first week in September, but we are preparing for the worst. We are training strike committee members on the fourth of September, so that they are ready to go," he said. "It's going to have to take some kind of action. We can't continue to roll over and accept zeros like we have for the last four
years."
The union is asking for job security - no layoffs - and an annual two per cent pay raise, Marsolais explained.
CUPE represents about 27,000 education assistants, clerks, trades workers, bus drivers and other staff in the province. The union's collective agreements are being negotiated under the provincial government's "co-operative gains mandate," a policy that means wage increases are possible only if equivalent savings can be found elsewhere in a district's budget.
