Edmonton school support staff vote overwhelmingly to strike Thursday

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The first-ever strike of Edmonton Public School support workers is set for Thursday as teaching assistants and other members of CUPE Local 3550 take on the UCP government’s wage cap.

With 92 per cent of eligible members turning out to vote, and 97 per cent of those in favour, the local’s first-ever strike vote tallied Saturday was overwhelming — and unusually strong for Alberta — said Mandy Lamoureux, president of CUPE Local 3550.

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“We have never had this provincial wage cap before,” she said.

“We heard that number, and now we’re fighting because our membership has spoken, and we are going to support them.”

According to CUPE records, the local has never had a strike vote in its 34-year history. 

Low wages drive workers away

On the front lines, mostly educational assistants, with some technicians, clerks, interpreters, and licensed practical nurses, her members make, on average, $27,000 to $30,000 a year.

“Our members haven’t seen a meaningful wage increase in the last 12 years, and so they’re struggling financially,” she said.

“The (provincial) government has imposed that the school boards cannot give us more than 2.75 per cent, so they’re offering us the first year zero per cent, second year zero per cent, third year 1.25 per cent, and the fourth year 1.5 per cent, where the cost of living has gone up by 30 per cent in that amount of time, so 2.75 per cent is not going to cut it,” Lamoureux said.

“They’re having a hard time hiring because not a lot of people want to work at this highly skilled job for such a low wage, and right now in Edmonton Public Schools, on a daily basis, 150 to 200 educational assistant positions are not being filled.”

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“Twelve years ago, this was a sustainable wage. You could live off this income as a single person, but you can’t now.”  

A serious labour shortage is causing burnout for the current staff, she said.

“It’s affecting the staff right now, we have an unprecedented number of staff that are on medical leave or burnout leave, and we’ve never seen that before,” she said, citing numbers from Supt. Darrel Robertson.

“Schools are going without educational assistants in many of the classrooms because they can’t staff them.”  

Funding envelope pain

While agreements have been reached with other items on the bargaining table, the sticking point is a four-year “funding envelope” as part of a “weighted moving average” funding formula based on the prior three years’ enrollments rather than preparing for booming provincial population growth.

The strategy — handed down in 2019 by then-education minister Adriana LaGrange (now Alberta’s health minister) — put a pinch on fast-growing urban districts.

In Edmonton, the province’s weighted moving average scheme falls $27 million short, by the equivalent of 4,002 students — about the same as the population of four schools — leaving the division with hard choices.

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The UCP government recently handed the province’s schools a stop-gap emergency measure of over $200 million. Edmonton schools are set to receive about a tenth of that, and some money is earmarked for additional education assistants. But as it stands, the wage isn’t too enticing.

September 2024 enrollment in Edmonton Public Schools was a record 120,724.

Statistics Canada data showed operational expenditures in Alberta totalled $11,601 per student in the 2020-21 school year, putting Alberta last in the country.

The Canadian average that same school year was $13,332 per student.

“We need the government to properly fund the schools so that the schools are not struggling to properly staff the classrooms,” Lamoureux said.

At stake in the current negotiation are wages for the last four years, back to 2020, because the COVID-19 pandemic hindered the collective bargaining process.

Once the collective is signed, it will expire and be back to negotiations for upcoming school years. 

Local 474, the 900 or so custodians of Edmonton Public Schools, are in a similar boat, and were set to finish a strike vote on Sunday.

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Postmedia has reached out to the Alberta Ministry of Education. 

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