More than half of all education workers across Canada are CUPE members. CUPE represents 160,000 workers in elementary and secondary schools across Canada in every classification in the school system – except teachers and management – in over 400 education bargaining units.
From over 57,000 members in Ontario to representing 100 per cent of the education workers in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, CUPE’s Education Sector remains one of the strongest in Canada. We represent the full range of support staff classifications in nearly every province.
Issues
Chronic underfunding
Funding increases have not kept up with the costs of providing education and maintenance demands, leaving school boards under enormous pressure. Real per-student funding in Ontario has been cut steadily from 2012-13 to the present. This has been achieved, in part, by keeping wages artificially low through wage restraint legislation and incursions on free collective bargaining. It also puts profound pressure on school boards to hire adequate staff to meet students needs, and layoffs occur on a regular basis, resulting in worsening working and learning conditions in Ontario schools.
In other provinces, the situation is similarly dire. In Saskatchewan, the provincial budget shows a troubling trend by budgeting $4.428 billion for education in 2025-26, a cut from the $4.454 billion spent in 2024-25. The underfunding crisis, combined with escalating inflationary costs, is causing an understaffing crisis across the province.
In Alberta, public school funding now occurs using a three-year average. If you are in a school district with growing enrolment, you are shorted per student funding. For the Edmonton public school district, the new calculation has caused a funding shortfall worth 100 students.
In Quebec, CUPE successfully campaigned to prevent the government from proceeding with announced cuts. However, damage was still done in some school boards, where members have already lost jobs and supports to students have been cut.
In Manitoba, funding increases outpaced inflation for the 2025-26 school year, but there is still a long way to go. CUPE Manitoba continues to press for funding to address systemic wage inequalities and to improve supports for students by increasing the number of education workers employed in the system.
Privatization
Public dollars going to fund private schools and public-private partnerships (P3) in the education sector is becoming more common in many provinces. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Quebec all provide some public funding for private schools.
Saskatchewan increased funding to their public, Roman Catholic and francophone school divisions by a meagre 13% from 2020-21 to 2024-25, while private schools (or “qualified independent schools”) received a 79% boost over the same timeframe.
In Alberta, the United Conservative Party continues to facilitate the expansion of charter schools and the erosion of public P-12 education. In 2025-26 funding for private schools will outpace inflation and population growth, while publicly delivered K-12 education falls further behind. The province also continues the failed, ideologically driven, project of P3 schools, moving forward with a bundle of six more P3 boondoggles.
Several governments including Nova Scotia (who have since purchased them back), New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, have built new public schools through expensive P3 deals with for-profit corporations. These schools cost more, are associated with lower quality, have restricted after-hours access, and their design often does not meet the broader community’s needs.
For 2025-26, the Manitoba government is also increasing funding for private schools (“independent schools”), budgeting for $7.8 million in operating funding and an additional $6 million in capital funding.
CUPE members across the country will continue to defend the public school system and call on governments to take bold action to fund public education adequately and consistently. Instead of using their own manufactured funding gaps to justify giving public dollars to private schools, governments must step up to provide a public school system that meets the needs of our communities.
Violence in schools continues to rise
Violence and threats experienced by education workers who deal directly with students is on the rise. Our members are acutely aware of it. A recent report by researchers at the University of Ottawa confirms it. CUPE locals are pursuing better training and reporting mechanisms and enforcing members’ rights under occupational health and safety acts. Members are also demanding better staffing levels in schools to help prevent violence in the workplace and improve supports to students.
Wages
For years, provincial governments across the country have used legislated wage freezes and government wage mandates to supress the wages of education workers. CUPE members in every part of Canada have been fighting against this trend, using strikes, when necessary, to win increases that are better than what governments try to force on us.
CUPE members in education are fighting back after years of austerity and wage freezes. In 2021, New Brunswick education workers joined the province wide CUPE strike to demand that their pay at least keep pace with inflation and close the gap created by the government after years of being underpaid.
In 2022, CUPE school board workers went on strike to defeat legislation that would have imposed below-inflation wage increases, winning $1/hour increases in each of four years. Wages continue to be a top priority in Ontario due to previous years of imposed wage restraint, and the ongoing affordability crisis faced by all workers.
In BC, education workers continue to fight for good wage increases. Currently engaged in central bargaining (as of July 2025), the provincial bargaining committee received a wage proposal from the government that was below what other CUPE locals in BC have won, and less than patterns emerging in K-12 across the country.
In 2025 CUPE education worker locals engaged in strike action in many parts of the province to win improvements above the provincial government’s wage mandate for public sector workers. Through determined action, CUPE members were able to win wage settlements that included flat increases that meant that the lowest paid workers wages increased above the government’s mandate. Prior to this breakthrough, members in Alberta had had 8-10 years of zeros and they are fed up with conservative wage mandates that would have put them further behind.
Saskatchewan is one of the few provinces without any form of central bargaining for support workers. In recent years, there has been some effort made to align expiry dates. On August 31, 2022, 10 CUPE education collective agreements expired. Altogether, these 10 agreements cover 4,000 of CUPE’s 7,000 education support workers in the province. Given the continued underfunding of the education sector, and skyrocketing inflation, it will take strong plans and maximum member participation for CUPE locals to negotiate wage increases that keep up with the rising cost of living.
In Manitoba, education workers were subject to wage freeze legislation. However, through coordinated bargaining, and in the case of CUPE 1630 a four-month-long winter strike, CUPE was successful in achieving modest wage increases in each year of the contract, including COLA in the last year of the deal.
Pensions
Over 90% of CUPE members in the school board sector are covered by defined benefit pension plans, and virtually all CUPE members in the sector have access to a pension. Members in Manitoba have been pushing employers to adopt defined benefit plans to replace the inferior defined contribution plans that are widespread in the sector.
Covering the early years
Starting public education at a younger age offers improved child development and well-being, women’s equality and employment, higher-quality care, and better jobs for child care workers. In 2021, the government of PEI and Newfoundland expanded their public education system to include the early learning years (ages 4 and 5). PEI currently offers 15 hours a week of pre-kindergarten programming out of child care centres. Newfoundland is currently piloting a pre-kindergarten program at 35 YMCAs.
In 2019, the CAQ government passed legislation to make pre-kindergarten available to four-year-olds across Quebec. Unlike other provinces, Quebec’s existing subsidized daycare network meant that this move simply created an unnecessary parallel system while adding further funding strains and higher student-teacher ratio in Quebec’s schools.