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School District 57 in Prince George, B.C., has been dabbling with school-based budgeting for the last several years. As CUPE school workers across the country know, decentralizing the budget management process rarely benefits unionized support staff.
Since l995, school-based budgeting has eliminated centralized purchasing and control of clerical and janitorial sick day replacements. The result tremendous workload increases for CUPE members.
Marylin Hannah, President of Local 3742, calls school-based budgeting the smoke and mirrors approach to education funding. They pretend to be saving money for the school district by this approach to budgeting, says Hannah. In fact, all that happens is that fewer people are expected to do the work and students, particularly in lower income areas, suffer.
Late in l997, the Prince George school board announced plans to reduce custodial service from 12 months to ten effectively laying off custodians two months every year.
Marilyn Hannah is no stranger to school board meetings. She and members of the local executive keep watch on trustees actions throughout the year to ensure that decisions such as the custodial layoffs do not come as a surprise. Lead by Hannah, the local particularly the custodians moved into fight back mode.
The groups first success was to delay the final layoff decision to the end of January. Then members of the local worked with Research staff to demonstrate the holes in the boards logic and highlight the negative effect the layoffs would have on cleanliness and safety. A telephone tree was set up, ads were drafted and the local prepared to move into action.
By January 12, a brief entitled Clean Schools, Safe Schools was ready for distribution to the residents of Prince George. Ads in local newspapers invited people to pick up a copy of the report and members began working the phones to ensure that pressure would build on the trustees to preserve quality janitorial services in the districts schools.
Support from the media and the public was strong, yet the school board at first decided to proceed with the cuts. But the pressure did not subside. The local filed a complaint with the Labour Relations Board while the school board continued to take heat from members, parents, the media and perhaps the province.
In March, three months before the layoffs were to take effect, the board Chair announced that layoffs were on hold and that any changes would be pursued through the bargaining process.
The fight to maintain and improve our custodial services is not over, says Marilyn Hannah. This membership is very keen about being seen and heard when it comes to the public knowing what we do at work.
n Louise Leclair
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