On November 1, Hanover School Division’s (HSD) nearly 300 educational assistants (EA)s may be absent from the classroom as they take to the picket lines. The decision was made after 96 percent of the division’s EAs voted in favour of strike action.
Represented by the education, service, and healthcare union, CLAC Local 306, EAs began negotiations with HSD in March of this year. Cost of living wage increases, retroactive to 2022, are the primary focus of their request.
The two negotiating parties have yet to reach an agreement since they last met on October 24.
The union’s regional director, Geoff Dueck Thiessen, says it’s rare that strike action has been needed for CLAC negotiations to be reached in the past.
“People should understand that this is not a strike-happy union or strike-happy employees,” Thiessen says. “What we are doing is sending a message that HSD support staff are critical members of the division’s educational team and that we care enough about this issue to take a stand. And if we end up having to picket, you’re going to see positive people who want to get back to the work they love.”
Hanover School Division’s Position
On October 26, HSD released a statement regarding the impending strike.
“The division recognizes the valuable work that educational assistants perform with our students,” the statement says. “The division remains committed to reaching a mutually agreeable settlement.”
The next conciliator-led meeting, they say, has been set for October 30. Should a strike ensue, though, HSD will take proactive steps to ensure that students’ needs are met. No indication has been provided as to what those steps will be.
Why have staff wages not increased? The division’s statement points to a lack of provincial funding as well as provincially imposed taxation restraints.
With only a 1.8 percent increase in provincial funding this year, the 2023–24 HSD budget, released in spring, mandated that almost $2.7 million be cut.
Fifty percent of those budget cuts were applied to staff wages, resulting in the loss of 10.5 teacher positions.
“Divisional resources must be managed efficiently, effectively, and in a manner that demonstrates responsibility to the public and taxpayers of the division,” the statement concludes.
Justifying an EA Wage Increase
Thiessen says there’s no question that the entire educational system has been struggling under the financial pressures they face, especially as their role in society changes and schools pivot to providing overall childhood wellness as opposed to simply offering an education.
Indeed, the provincial funding model has changed in recent years, removing the flexibility school divisions once had to charge more in municipal taxes to help manage their budgets.
This has had an effect on every school division across the province, not just HSD.
“Hanover School Division has had the lowest admin cost per student of any school division for a lot of years,” Thiessen says. “That is not new because of the recent change in educational funding. That’s a long-standing [fact].”
For this reason, he says, it may be time for HSD to consider how they prioritize the funding they do receive.
“What we don’t talk about are the priorities in the school division, the things that our money is spent on. Hanover has very nice facilities. They’ve made it a priority to give technological resources to all of their students, and that’s great.”
But, he adds, these things shouldn’t come at the expense of the division’s most valuable resource, the staff.
And one might choose to look at administrative salaries while they’re at it.
According to InfoMB, a government database for public sector compensation disclosure, HSD’s superintendent Shelley Amos’ salary jumped from $152,832.00 in 2021 to $183,875 in 2022. That’s an increase of more than 20 percent in one year.1
“Certainly, HSD didn’t get a very large increase to their operating budget, but Seine River did not get an enormous increase either. Borderland School Division gave their support staff a 7.8 percent increase this year retroactive to last year and they only got a small increase to their budget too.”
Even so, he adds, school divisions that feel they can’t make ends meet have been known to raise their property tax mill rates in spite of provincial legislation against doing so.
“Seven Oaks School Division raised their property taxes and endured a penalty for it,” Thiessen says. “So it’s doable. We can’t wait around for HSD to get some sort of funding boost and just kick this [issue] down the road for years. The consequences are happening now.”
Comparing EA Wages
According to Thiessen, $16.78 per hour is HSD’s going rate for an incoming EA with no formal education or accreditation. This exceeds the province’s minimum wage by $1.48 and has been the rate in Hanover since 2021.
“We actually have EAs supporting high school students who have part-time jobs and are making more than the EA that’s helping them graduate,” he says.
If an EA comes to the table with formal certification or something similar, their wage in Hanover jumps by 95 cents per hour, to $17.73.
The top rate in Hanover for someone who’s been an EA in the system for many years is $20.87.
The Borderland School Division covers much of southern Manitoba, including towns like Piney, Altona, and Gretna. Here, the EAs don’t belong to a union. Even so, Thiessen says they make almost $3 more per hour than HSD EAs.
The Seine River School Division, with schools in St. Adolphe, Île-des-Chênes, and Lorette, recently came to a bargaining agreement with their EAs the night before they were to go on strike.
“They had very comparable wages to Hanover’s wages, but now they’re more similar to Sunrise in Winnipeg,” Thiessen says. “[Their increase accounts for a] $3 to $4 per hour difference. Seine River’s going to get another significant wage increase in 2024 that they’ve negotiated. So if we don’t get an increase now, then in 2024 we’d be more like $5 or $6 behind them.”
Thiessen says there’s no fair comparison to make between a teacher’s wages and an EA’s because teachers work on a salary and not an hourly rate.
Regardless, for the first time ever, the Manitoba Teachers’ Society will be bargaining for the wage of every teacher in the province based on a provincial standard rather than bargaining with each school division separately.
“We’re soon going to see teachers who already make a decent living wage get adjustments that we know are going to be probably pretty significant. But support staff, some of whom make less than their own students, are not getting increases,” Thiessen says. “So we just don’t think that the [HSD] budget has had those folks in mind.”
The Role of Support Staff
Apart from teachers who benefit from supporting EAs, and parents whose children are directly supported by an EA, few may realize just how important the role of the EA is to the school system.
The job of the EA is to provide support to the teacher in the classroom. Oftentimes they are assisting students who require additional help.
But these days many EAs are also expected to perform more specialized one-on-one support for students dealing with disabilities or special needs. They might be tasked with healthcare requirements, such as installing feeding tubes and catheters, giving injections, or dealing with colostomy bags.
For many, the job extends into the psychology field as well.
“There’s been a shift in education over the past years in how to interact with students who have disabilities,” Thiessen says. “For example, autism. We’ve seen education moving away from hands-on restraints, for example, to rather focusing on behavioural adjustments. [In other words,] how you help a student to regulate their own emotional state and behaviour, in a school setting, so that they can return to a calm state. So the EA’s job is becoming increasingly complex.”
Despite this, Hanover EAs do not receive paid breaks or rest times. According to Thiessen, this is unique to HSD.
The current collective agreement between HSD and their EAs also provides a guaranteed minimum of only six hours of paid training and professional development.
But the extensive training needed to manage both the physical and mental special needs of children just can’t be learned in a few short hours. Many of them, Thiessen adds, are just learning on the fly.
“They’re basically just practicing on the job and being told when they’re getting it wrong.”
Recently, the federal government introduced Jordan’s Principle, a financial aid program that helps school divisions hire more support staff to ensure Indigenous children aren’t left behind.
According to Thiessen, Hanover will need to increase their workforce by roughly 90 people to accommodate this program.
“So they’re needing to recruit a lot of EAs and I think the concern is, who are you hiring for $16.78 an hour? What kinds of qualifications are you getting in the door for students that have significant needs? Whether they’re Indigenous or not, that’s not the point. All of the students getting EA support need the support, whether it’s physical disabilities or learning or behavioural challenges.”
Staff retention, too, is something all employers should consider when developing their pay scales.
“You want people who are willing to do this for a career and not just for a year or two until they’re doing their next thing. Because our seasoned people are incredible. The things they understand and can do and tolerate, through practice, it’s just inspiring.”
