Support workers feeling forsaken by teachers' union

As job action by education workers in Ontario moves into its fourth month, cracks are beginning to show in the unified front of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF), especially in Ottawa.

In Ottawa, support workers including early childhood educators (ECEs), educational assistants (EAs), custodians and office administrators account for approximately 70 per cent of the 4,500 OSSTF union members.

In recent weeks, their dissatisfaction with how their union has been negotiating on their behalf has boiled over into complaints on social media and calls to break away and create a separate union.

"[OSSTF] is fighting for a lot of people, but they're not really fighting for EAs or ECEs. As an EA, none of my concerns are being addressed by the union," said Daren Loucks, an EA who works with children with autism.

Loucks, who said he earns slightly more than $40,000 a year, said the salary increase the OSSTF is fighting for won't go nearly far enough for support workers like him, many of whom will still need to get a second job or claim employment insurance during the summer.

All of us could benefit from being a separate union.- Daren Loucks, EA

"All of us could benefit from being a separate union, because as long as we are with a teachers' union we are going to fight teachers' fights and only get what's left over," he said.

"Support staff should be its OWN union ... to fight for our rights and issues," reads one recent message on a closed Facebook group for local educational support workers. 

'They will have nothing'

Jean Trant, an EA and the president of the local OSSTF bargaining unit, acknowledges that dissatisfaction among her fellow support workers, but said there's a key difference.

"I agree that we do not have what the teachers have, and most likely never will as they have been fighting for what they currently have for the past 100 years," she said.

"EAs have only been unionized for the past 30 ... and ECEs only the past 10. To continually compare support staff to teachers is comparing apples to oranges."

Trant said there's no guarantee support workers would be able to get the generous medical and dental benefits they have under the OSSTF if they struck out on their own. 

"I keep reminding them if they go out on their own, they will have nothing. They will start from scratch."