Students show solidarity with CUPE strikers

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This article was published 30/11/2021 (1751 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FORREST — CUPE 1630 members received a major morale boost Monday afternoon when a group of more than 50 students from Elton Collegiate joined their picket line outside of the Grade 9-12 school.

Carrying CUPE flags, buttons and whistles, the students walked the school’s bus lane from end to end, chanting their support for the Rolling River School Division custodians and cleaners who have been on strike since Nov. 1.

Some students brought their own custom signs to the march, several of which carried the same message: “We miss our custodians.”

During this demonstration, Elton Collegiate student council president Alan Beltran told the Sun he and his peers organized the show of solidarity during their lunch periods last week, wanting to remind the CUPE members how much their work is valued.

“They clean for us and they always give us a nice smile when we walk by them in the hallways,” the Grade 12 student said. “And I feel like it’s been kind of empty without them and kind of lonely. So it was nice to see them and try to support them as best we could.”

Student council vice-president Emma, who didn’t want to disclose her last name, also said that every grade from Elton Collegiate was represented during Monday’s march, which completely took her by surprise.

“This is most of the student body … and it’s so nice to see. I was not expecting to see this great of an outcome,” she said. “It really shows how strong of a community we have.”

Equally surprised by the scale of this demonstration was Elton Collegiate head custodian Kathy Cameron, who told the Sun she was completely “blown away” by the level of student participation.

“We were truly in awe of their passion and their eagerness to stand up,” Cameron said.

“They wore the CUPE buttons, they waved the flags, they blew the whistles, they enjoyed being with us and we were so appreciative of them coming to show their support.”

The head custodian, who has worked for the school division for 25 years, also mentioned this large-scale gesture was the exact psychological boost she needed after standing on the picket line for almost a month.

“We’re starting our fifth week of walking and it is a tough thing to do,” Cameron said. “But we firmly, firmly believe that this is what we need to do at this time.”

CUPE 1630 members officially declared a strike on Nov. 1 after negotiations broke down with the school division over wage parity.

The union is looking to secure annual wage increases of 1.6 per cent, 1.4 per cent, 0.5 per cent, and a cost-of-living adjustment for its custodians and cleaners over a four-year period between 2018-19 and 2021-22.

This increase has already been granted to custodians and cleaners at more than 20 different school divisions across the province, with Rolling River being one of the few remaining holdouts.

CUPE 1630 president Kevin Jay reiterated on Monday that he views the division’s actions as particularly insulting given how hard their custodians and cleaners have been working to keep students safe throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When everybody else got to stay home, we were told, ‘You guys have to stay and make these schools clean,’” said Jay, who works as a custodian at Rivers Elementary.

“And we did. We didn’t haggle. We didn’t put up a fight. We didn’t put up any resistance. We just said ‘Well, yeah.’

In the weeks since CUPE members declared the strike, the division has had to make do with temporary replacement workers to keep its 12 schools clean throughout the fourth wave of the pandemic.

However, several parents have voiced their concerns about how these replacement workers compare to the striking employees, a worry the student council vice-president echoed on Monday.

“Since there’s no one to clean right after our lunch break, you can tell that it was not up to the standards that it usually was,” Emma said.

“Just throughout the day, it kind of accumulates more of a mess as opposed to before, when we would have them cleaning every hour. They were there throughout the day making a difference.”

Jay told the Sun the union’s negotiations with the division haven’t been productive so far, with the school board’s most recent offer falling short of what CUPE 1630 is asking for.

While this back-and-forth is frustrating for Cameron, the Elton Collegiate head custodian said Monday’s show of support from the student body reminded her of why they’re on the picket line in the first place.

“We’re doing this for the upcoming people who work in the schools,” she said. “We’re doing it so we can make a fair wage and so we can have a pension. And the next people are going to need it, too.”

The Sun contacted RRSD Supt. Jason Cline for comment but did not receive a response by press time.

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