(Halifax) – A second, non-profit child care centre in HRM has announced it plans to shut its doors, and the union representing workers there says it’s time for the Minister of Community Services to stop the bleeding.
CUPE says employees have been informed by the Board of Directors of the Sackville Bedford Developmental Centre that they will be closing the Sackville Arena site as they are losing approximately $8,000 a month.
The child care workers are members of CUPE Local 4745, which also represented workers at the YMCA Child Care Centre in Dartmouth that recently closed its doors.
CUPE Nova Scotia President Danny Cavanagh says, “It is time for Minister Peterson-Rafuse to step in and do something about this. At this rate, it looks like child care workers in Nova Scotia will never see an end to the exploitation they’ve been facing for decades.
Cavanagh says when CUPE first unionized the Sackville centre, they were literally paying all of their staff $8 an hour. Since then they have received only modest wage increases.
“This sector has been so under-funded, and child care workers so underpaid, for so long it’s shameful. As a province, we should all be ashamed at what little worth we place on early childhood education and care,” he says.