Rivers students support CUPE strike

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This article was published 09/12/2021 (1742 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

RIVERS — For the second time in just over a week, students enrolled in the Rolling River School Division marched alongside striking members of CUPE Local 1630.

While Elton Collegiate students kicked off this trend on Nov. 29, their peers at Rivers Collegiate put together a similar demonstration Wednesday afternoon that was designed to show solidarity with the striking custodians and cleaners.

Although the Rivers march only attracted a fraction of the participation compared to last week — fewer than 10 students — the pupils who showed up for Wednesday’s event echoed many of the same sentiments as their Elton counterparts.

Grade 11 student Jayden McLeod told the Sun he wanted to remind these striking custodians and cleaners their work is still valued.

McLeod said he has witnessed a noticeable dip in the cleanliness around the Grade 7-12 school ever since the CUPE 1630 members went on strike on Nov. 1, which forced the division to hire replacement workers.

“There was s–t on the walls in the bathroom that was there for like a good week before it was cleaned up,” he said. “There’s little messes that normally would be cleaned up that aren’t being cleaned up.”

Rivers Collegiate chief custodian Courtney Raupers said she was disheartened to hear about this alleged drop in sanitary standards since the union went on strike.

However, this revelation didn’t exactly come as a surprise, since she said there’s no way these replacement workers could possess the same intimate knowledge of the buildings — and its inhabitants — that allows her fellow janitors to perform their duties at such a high level.

“Because there are a few kids, and I know exactly which ones, who have nose bleeds, and I’m usually right behind them cleaning it up, making sure it’s safe,” Raupers said. “We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and we have to be keeping these kids safe.”

The strike was triggered 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.

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

Last Thursday, RRSD officials claimed in a news release they had provided a “more than fair” proposal to the union on Nov. 22, which entails a five-year collective agreement (from July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2023) that includes a salary increase of 7.6 per cent throughout that time.

CUPE 1630 president Kevin Jay told the Sun on Friday the union rejected this offer due to the fact that the division didn’t factor in a cost-of-living adjustment.

“The Rolling River School Division wants to add the fifth year because they want to lock in an inflationary increase despite the rising cost of everything,” Jay said last week. “If you’re paying attention to everything on the planet, everything is going up. So to lock in something two years from now … it would be crazy.”

With the strike now in its sixth week, Raupers said she definitely feels disrespected by the RRSD and even some members of her own school, who have left them out in the cold for over a month.

“We’ve been told from the get-go that we’re part of a community at this school,” she said. “But if we really were, how could you stand seeing us being out here?”

But Raupers’ resolve remains strong, especially after witnessing some Rivers Collegiate students marching alongside the union on Wednesday.

“We just want what’s fair. We want to get back to our kids,” she said. “We might not be teachers, but they’re our kids, too.”

CUPE 1630 members are looking to keep the pressure on the division by staging another major demonstration outside Minnedosa Collegiate today starting at around 11 a.m. The union is hoping the local student body and even CUPE national president Mark Hancock will join them for the event.

Rolling River School Division interim Supt. Jason Cline did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

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