OVERVIEW

CUPE represents early childhood educators, assistants, cooks, and cleaners in the sector in both stand-alone and multi-sector locals. The bargaining units tend to be small and the wages low. The employers can be not-for-profit volunteer-run boards, municipalities, school boards or for-profit.

  • Number of members working in child care or ECE: 12,000
  • Number of bargaining units: 195

CUPE represents over 3,000 members in dedicated child care centres. CUPE also represents many early childhood educators (ECEs) delivering child care programs in other sectors such as education and municipal services. We represent over 3,300 members employed by school boards. These members deliver pre-K, kindergarten, and before and after school programs. Many municipalities deliver child care programs directly; CUPE represents about 5,000 members employed in their child care centres. We also represent almost 500 child care workers at universities and colleges that directly provide child care services. Finally, many multi-service agencies deliver child care programs where CUPE represents the members.

In total, CUPE represents approximately 12,000 members who work in the sector or work delivering ECE programs. We represent members in the child care sector for every province except Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, which are primarily not unionized.

ISSUES

Canada-Wide Early Learning and Childcare Plan

In the 2021 federal budget, the Canadian government announced its long-awaited Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Plan, designating $30 billion to bring parent fees down to an average of $10-a-day across the country. This was a hard-won victory resulting from decades of tireless advocacy by CUPE members, child care advocates, and women’s organizations.

As part of this program, the federal government negotiated five year cost sharing agreements with every province and territory. In March 2025, the federal government provided an additional $20 billion to extend these agreements to 2030-2031, including a 3% annual escalator to address inflation. Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario are the only provinces that have yet to sign an extension to their agreements.

The program is the most significant federal financial and policy commitment to child care to date. Under the program, child care centres across Canada received substantial public funding for the first time ever.

Since the program’s introduction, six provinces and territories have achieved the $10-a-day average fee: Nunavut, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Most parents in New Brunswick, Alberta and Ontario pay set fees that are significantly lower than they were before the federal program, but they are still higher than $10-a-day. Elsewhere, fees vary substantially. Parents pay anywhere from as little as $9 a day in some public centres in Quebec, to upwards of $46 a day for infant care in BC.

Included in the plan are other broad goals intended to build a universal child care system, such as:

  • The creation of 250,000 new child care spaces across the country and support not-for-profit child care operators to increase availability of licensed child care spaces.
  • Investment in ECE wages and training, which will in turn support higher quality child care.
  • Improvement in access to high-quality, accessible and culturally appropriate child care. For example, improvements to centres’ physical accessibility and direct investment in Indigenous specific early learning and child care.

Unfortunately, progress on these goals has been mixed. Between 2021 and 2024, for example, the number of licensed child care spaces for children 0 to 12 increased by 191,771. While this is no small achievement, there were very few spaces to begin with in 2021 since so many centres closed or laid off staff during the pandemic. With fees coming down in this time, and many parents returning to in-person work, demand for child care has also increased, far outpacing the expansion in spaces.

While most jurisdictions have taken some steps to improve wages and benefits for child care workers, none have done enough to meaningfully address the recruitment and retention crisis. As of 2025, eight provinces and territories have implemented wage grids that set minimum wages for all ECEs. In most cases, province-wide wage grids have resulted in initial wage bumps for workers. Some, however, set base wages too low and/or don’t include regular wage increases, which means they are unlikely to deliver fair wages in the long-term or address retention challenges. Few of these wage grids have been developed with worker input. Workers’ collective bargaining rights are compromised when governments unilaterally set wages, especially when those wage rates are interpreted to be ceilings instead of floors.  

Child care advocates are also concerned by the expansion of for-profit centres. Global child care corporations are looking to expand in countries like Canada and provinces are capitulating to their demands. For instance, the Ontario government removed profit caps, auditing requirements, and reduced oversight on operator spending to incentivize for-profit participation in their child care plan. Other provinces, such as Nova Scotia, limit funding to not-for-profit operators who reduce their fees and join the province’s compensation framework for ECEs. However, they allow for-profit operators to access public funding if they abide by the same provincial rules.

Experts of public and universal child care systems warn that for-profit child care operators keep wages low and they are less likely to deliver high-quality, accessible and equitable services. Child care advocates insist that provinces must establish accountability requirements for government funding to child care operators and the federal government needs to lay out a detailed plan to expand public and non-profit centres.

CUPE will continue to build sector-wide advocacy for publicly delivered, universal and accessible child care, and support sector-wide advocacy for improved wages, benefits, and working conditions in child care.

Unionization

Unionization in child care is low. As of 2024, only 27% of child care workers who were paid employees were union members. Quebec has the most union density, with over half of child care workers being unionized. PEI and New Brunswick has the lowest, where almost no child care workers are members of a union. Child care workers who belong to a union have more pension access, better working conditions, higher wages, and more benefits. Across Canada, CUPE represents the largest number of members delivering child care and early childhood education services in child care centres as well as other programs.

Wages

Child care workers’ pay is insufficient. As of 2024, the median wage for a child care worker in Canda was $23.00 an hour. However, unionization makes a difference. The median wage of a child care worker who is unionized is $4 more than for those who are not unionized. This means that a child care worker who is a member of a union can expect to make over $8,000 more in gross annual income than a child care worker who is not a union member. For a worker who spends their career in the sector, being unionized can amount to more than a quarter million dollars more in lifetime earnings than a career worker who is not unionized.

Workers in the public sector have even more to gain. A unionized worker in the public sector’s median wage is $5.47 more than a non-unionized worker in the private sector. This can amount to over $11,000 in gross annual income, or nearly $400,000 in lifetime earnings.

It’s important to remember that these are medians and some unionized workers stand to earn significantly more. CUPE has negotiated wages for child care workers upwards of $45 per hour, which is over $45,000 more in gross annual income than a worker making $22.00 an hour (the median wage of a non-union worker).

Pensions

Pension coverage for the child care sector is low. It has been increasing, however, since the introduction of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Childcare Plan. In 2024, Nova Scotia started funding employer contributions to a defined benefit pension plan for all ECEs in licensed child care centres in the province. Prince Edward Island also funds a pension plan for licensed child care workers, but it is a defined contribution plan. Manitoba has been offering a subsidy to employers to contribute to workers’ pension plans since 2010, and ECEs in Quebec who work in centres directly funded by the province are members of a defined benefit plan. Outside of these provinces, access to pensions varies between employers. Unionized workers are significantly more likely to have a pension. More than half of CUPE members in the child care sector have access to a registered pension plan.

BARGAINING

CUPE has worked to create structures and strategies that provide more effective coordination, bargaining, and campaigns for the child care sector. In Nova Scotia, CUPE worked with allies to campaign and win provincially funded ECE wages and working standards. Ontario child care sector members are represented on the social services workers’ committee and also support the provincial child care coalition. One large local in Toronto has 30 sites and represents 350 members. In Ottawa, one local represents over 400 child care workers at 13 centres and has set up a common bargaining table. One local is representing all the workers for the private-for-profit centre Kids & Company across Ontario. Manitoba has a local representing around 100 members at five child care centres. Although CUPE represents few child care locals in BC, they are covered under province-wide community services bargaining. Outside of the Ottawa and Toronto locals and BC, coordinated bargaining in the sector is rare.

The not-for-profit child care sector is under extreme pressure. Many locals face pressure for concessions at the bargaining table, despite the need to make significant bargaining gains. Locals are facing two-tier proposals for both new hires and casual employees.

CAMPAIGNS

CUPE has been a leader in campaigns for child care, working in coalition with many groups, including Child Care Now.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, members across the country conducted emergency campaigns to address the crises of child care centre closures and struggles of operators retain current staff and recruit new staff. CUPE members fought against decisions by municipal councils to shut down their child care centres and layoff staff due to financial pressure on municipal budgets.

Since the introduction of the Canada Wide Early Learning and Child Care plan, CUPE has pushed hard to ensure workforce issues aren’t forgotten. Our Shine a Light campaign called on the federal government to fund a national workforce strategy, and work with the provinces and territories to improve wages and working conditions in the sector.

In Ontario, CUPE has been working with the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care and others on the Worth More campaign, which calls for paid sick days, professional development time, a decent wage floor, and paid programming time for child care workers. In British Columbia, where there are only enough spaces for about 25% of children, many parents are left without child care options or see kids shuffled between facilities throughout the day. CUPE is campaigning to build seamless child care throughout the public education system including universal, quality childcare for all school-aged children.

The integration of before and after school care into the school system using the seamless day model of early learning and child care would significantly increase available child care, while delivering a very high quality, value-added system of early childhood education.

CUPE has also been involved in anti-privatization campaigns, including campaigns focused on the large for-profit corporations that threaten the development of a strong public national child care program.

CUPE’s child care sector has been engaging in the campaign for migrant justice. CUPE recognizes the intersection of child care work with the need for landed status and better working conditions for migrant workers.