Five groups of education support workers, represented by CUPE will participate in strike votes between Feb 9-11.

The groups include:
CUPE 40, Calgary Board of Education (800 custodial and maintenance employees)
CUPE 520, Calgary Catholic School Division (350 custodial and maintenance employees)
CUPE 3484, Black Gold School Division (500 secretarial, librarians and EAs)
CUPE 5040, Foothills School Division (300 support staff employees)
CUPE 5543, Parkland School Division (400 EAs and support staff employees)

Over 4,000 education support workers in the Edmonton region and Fort McMurray are already on strike.

CUPE Alberta President Rory Gill says the votes are part of plans to escalate job action until the Alberta government addresses low wages of school support workers. Gill says the average educational support worker earns just $34,500 in Alberta. Alberta has the lowest per student funding of any province in Canada.

“Some support staff have gone ten years without a cost-of-living wage,” said Gill. “Many of our members work two to three jobs to earn a living wage.”

CUPE locals across the province have been bargaining since 2020, but face ‘mandates’ from the provincial government limiting increases to well below inflation.

“The impact of the UCP policy of starvation wages on the classroom is staggering,” said Gill. “People are quitting, no one will take the jobs at these wages, and students and education are suffering.”

Some school districts have job vacancy rates of roughly 10% of all positions, as schools cannot hire at such low wages.

“It is a hard decision to vote to strike,” said Gill. “But doing nothing will make a bad situation for students even worse in the long run. We need to act now to protect education in Alberta.”

Gill noted that a strike vote does not automatically mean job action will immediately follow, the province still has time to do the right thing and prevent these strikes from happening.

“We are trying to give parents as much notice as possible,” said Gill. “We know parents are in a tough spot, but we feel we have waited as long as we can, and we have to act for the long-term benefit of the students we love so much.”