The Seine River School Division (SRSD) board held a public meeting on the evening of February 13 to discuss a variety of agenda items, including the hiring of temporary workers to replace striking custodial staff.
Discussions on the subject had already taken place during a non-public board meeting held on Saturday, February 10, two days prior to the workers going on strike.
At Tuesday’s meeting, a motion was made to move forward with the decision to hire agency workers for the duration of the strike. The trustees passed the motion with the majority voting in favour.
SRSD custodial staff officially took to the picket lines on Monday, February 12. Their strike action came as a response to the board’s unwillingness to meet their demand for what they call a fair living wage. Custodial staff have been without a new contract since July 2021.
An SRSD board press release, issued on February 11, made public their intent to move forward with a replacement agency.
“While some disruption of services may occur during this time, the division has taken proactive measures to minimize the impact on its daily operations,” states the media release. “The division has contracted Express Employment Professionals to provide temporary services for the duration of the strike. These temporary workers, both daytime and evening staff, will undertake tasks typically performed by custodial staff.”
Even so, the board is extending an invitation to its current custodial staff to continue reporting for work during the strike if they so desire.
MGEU president Kyle Ross says that his union, which represents the custodial staff, also represents two other groups working for the SRSD, including educational assistants and the tech support team.
In each of those cases, Ross says, the SRSD has been willing to negotiate for a fair wage increase. Yet with the custodial staff, they aren’t demonstrating the same level of flexibility.
Ross is unclear as to why the custodial staff is being treated this way, but he adds that it might suggest that the role of these staffers is undervalued by administration.
Kevin Rebeck is president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour (MFL), an organization acting as the voice for over 125,000 public and private sector workers through the unions they participate in. He says it’s very disheartening when employers act in the way that the SRSD board has chosen to go.
“It’s really frustrating,” Rebeck says. “The idea that they’re hiring replacement workers on the day of the strike is particularly troubling. Clearly this has been their plan [all along]. Rather than give a fair deal, they thought they would just try and ignore the strike, and we don’t feel that that’s a fair action for anyone to take.”
According to Rebeck, what’s even more unfortunate is that, more often than not, temp workers often cost the employer as much or more than what the regular employees were asking for in the first place. This sends a harsh message to the employees about their value in the workplace.
Statistically speaking, too, hiring temporary workers often results in a strike that can last twice as long as it otherwise would have.
“We also worry about what kinds of qualifications these folks have,” Rebeck adds. “They are in schools where kids are. Do they have their child abuse registry checks and have they done all of those steps? I’m deeply concerned on who they’re hiring as replacement workers and making sure they have the skills and the [background] checks.”
Rebeck reiterates just how avoidable this strike was in the first place. In his experience, about 97 percent of collective bargaining processes never go to strike action. But when they do, it’s because workers feel that they have exhausted their options and aren’t being heard.
Even then, it’s a difficult choice to make, since it renders strikers without pay for an indefinite period of time.
“When people go on strike, they don’t do it lightly,” says Rebeck. “It’s a last resort.”
Rebeck is hopeful that, with the new NDP government, legislation can finally be created that puts an end to the hiring of temporary workers during a strike. This legislation already exists in British Columbia and Quebec and is being considered at the federal level, too.
Rebeck currently sits on the Labour Management Review Committee along with a variety of business heads. It’s their mandate to advise the provincial government regarding labour legislation and employment standards.
“This is something we’re very actively exploring and something we’re pushing hard for,” Rebeck says. “It’s something we think would be good for all Manitobans to make sure we have a fair process and to encourage people to get back to the bargaining table and negotiate fair deals that everyone can live with.”
SRSD superintendent Ryan Anderson has responded to queries and allegations made by Ross and Rebeck.
According to Anderson, the last time they sat at the bargaining table with the union rep was on Thursday, February 8, at which time the division recommended that they file jointly for conciliation as a next step.
On Saturday morning, he says, the division received news that union members were willing to enter into joint conciliation efforts but, at the same time, they’d be proceeding with a strike.
“It was at that point that we needed to start pulling things together for contingency plans,” Anderson says.
Anderson says that the division has never used this temp agency before and he was unprepared to speak to the pay structure on which they’d be compensated. Even so, he asserts that any temp workers hired by the division will be able to present criminal record and child abuse registry checks.
“We are very much concerned about student well-being, safety, and the security of our facility,” he says. “So it makes, hopefully, intuitive sense that as a school division we would ensure that proper security clearances are in place for people who are working in and around our children.”
