Rolling River custodians, cleaners remain on picket line

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/11/2021 (1776 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After declaring a strike on Monday, the CUPE 1630 union hasn’t made any headway on its wage parity dispute with the Rolling River School Division, the union’s president said Thursday.

Calling into the Sun from the group’s picket line in Minnedosa, Kevin Jay said he and the other 20 custodians and cleaners haven’t received any meaningful response from the Rolling River administration since they walked off the job.

“We haven’t heard anything from the school division,” Jay said over the phone. “We’re just anxiously awaiting any kind of movement, and we’re willing to sit down at any time.”

The Sun also contacted Rolling River interim Supt. Jason Cline for an update on the wage parity dispute and received the following statement in response.

“The division believes in and respects the collective bargaining process, and that bargaining is best done between the parties at the bargaining table,” Cline wrote Thursday afternoon. “I am unable to provide any update on bargaining at this time.”

CUPE 1630 members declared their intention to strike on Oct. 25, stipulating that all 21 custodians and cleaners currently employed by Rolling River would walk out on the job if their demands for wage parity were not met.

This would involve the division signing off on annual wage increases of 1.6 per cent, 1.4 per cent, 0.5 per cent, and a cost-of-living adjustment over a four-year period between 2018-19 and 2021-22.

Jay told the Sun on multiple occasions that this increase has already been granted to custodians and cleaners at 22 different school divisions across the province, and that CUPE 1630 members are only looking to be fairly compensated for their vital work.

Jay, who also works as a custodian for Rivers Elementary, said their workload has tripled during the COVID-19 pandemic, where the safety of staff and students is directly tied to sanitation.

“We stepped up, and it would be nice if they stepped up, too,” Jay said on Monday. “We did our part. We came together. We didn’t ask. We didn’t hesitate. When this pandemic hit … we didn’t even question it. We just said ‘we’re here for you.’”

In terms of who is keeping Rolling River buildings clean right now, Cline wrote that the division “has contingency plans in place to ensure schools continue to operate until an agreement is reached.”

While Cline didn’t elaborate on what the “contingency plans” entail, Jay claims that the division has already hired replacement custodians who began working on Tuesday, roughly 24 hours after the CUPE 1630 strike began.

“I couldn’t tell you how many [workers], but apparently we’re vital enough that they had to start the next day,” he said on Thursday.

While protesting outside Rolling River headquarters in Minnedosa has been challenging due to the chilly November weather, Jay said members of the community have been very supportive overall and have even provided strikers with food and drink on a semi-regular basis.

“And we’ve heard nothing but positive [things] from the community,” he said. “They stop and they sit and talk with us and as soon as they realize what we’re doing, they say ‘you guys keep going.’”

The Rolling River School Division consists of 12 different institutions and five Hutterite colony schools that are located within several Westman communities, such as Minnedosa, Rivers, Forrest, Erickson, Rapid City and Douglas.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter:@KyleDarbyson