School support workers are a week into their strike with no end in sight.
The members of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU) Local 70 and 73 representing the South Shore and Annapolis Valley are striking to demand equal pay with their counterparts across the province.
NSGEU president Sandra Mullen says the pay scale for every other civil servant in Nova Scotia is the same regardless of where they live, and school workers should be no different.
“The wage for a nurse is the same no matter where they work and the MLAs. The base salary for an MLA is the same across this province whether they are in Metro, Sydney or Yarmouth or in between, it’s the same,” said Mullen.
Striking union members were in the Nova Scotia Legislature on Tuesday to allow MLAs to put a face on the workers on the picket line.
On the floor, NDP MLA Kendra Coombes asked Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development Becky Druhan why someone working in the minister’s own riding shouldn’t be paid the same as someone from the city.
The minister replied her government supports parity for all workers across the province, but her department is not directly involved in negotiations.
“There seems to be a misconception across the table as to who exactly is party to the collective agreements that we have in place in education,” said Druhan. “I’d like to remind the members that the parties to our agreements in education are the Regions or the CSAP and the unions. Those are the parties who bargain these deals, those are the parties who are negotiating.”
Mullen isn’t buying it: she says under the previous school board structure each board would set their own budget and work within it when bargaining wages.
Mullen says since the previous Liberal government under Stephen McNeil abolished the school boards and created the Regional Centres for Education, the money is funnelled from the department so there’s no reason not to set provincial standards for wages.
“So, I believe they’re just throwing it back on the Regional Centre for Education as the employer. Perhaps they are the employer but there's no doubt in my mind that the decisions they make come from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Learning [Development],” said Mullen. “That is how we have seen pre-primary programs put in every school is because its provincial it's the same. So, if we're going to offer the same curriculum, the same programs in all of those schools, support, outreach programs, all of those things, there's no reason why they can't be paid the same.”
A conciliator has invited the Annapolis Valley Regional Centre for Education and NSGEU Local 73 back to the table for a meeting Friday.
No word yet on when the South Shore Regional Centre for Education and its union will return to negotiations.
Meanwhile, striking workers are resolved to stay out of schools and walking picket lines until they get equal pay for equal work.
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