‘Please see us’: Support workers’ union wants premier, education minister at bargaining table
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NDP leader Claudia Chender said the fact hundreds of children with disabilities haven’t been able to attend school for four full weeks is “unconscionable.”
“Inclusion Nova Scotia has made that plain,” Chender said in an interview.
On Tuesday, as reported here, Inclusion NS called the ongoing exclusion from school of students with disabilities a human rights violation.
Chender said it’s also a direct violation of HRCE’s inclusive education policy.
“The only solution in our minds, and the reason we’re here today, is to say the government needs to come back to the table and make sure that these workers earn enough to support their families so that they can support our families,” Chender said, adding that the premier “holds the levers” to return to the table.
“The reality is it’s an unsustainable situation. You can’t have a workforce which is so important, which is so critical to the development of children, who are so undervalued and so underpaid.”
‘These workers will be gone’
Chender said what she’s hearing from families most affected by the strike is overwhelming support for the workers.
Some striking workers and the families of children with disabilities have expressed concern this strike might continue when the school year ends. Chender said if the province was trying to make workers “wait it out,” it would be an “extremely dangerous” move.
Aside from the human dimension of their struggle for better pay, Chender said there are economic and logistical challenges for government. She points to the current labour shortage in early childhood education.
She said most school support workers already have second jobs because they can’t survive on what they’re making now.
“Many of them who I have spoken to have received job offers. And so if this government waits, these workers will be gone,” Chender said.
“It will cause a huge and extraordinarily expensive and difficult to solve challenge for this government because come fall, they will not have the workers they need. So, if that’s their strategy, it’s an enormous mistake.””