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SCHOOL WORKERS CONTINUE CONTRACT FIGHT
By Kimball Cariou
(This article is from the June 1-15/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
NEARLY 200 CUPE members and supporters rallied in Vancouver on May 15, demanding a fair contract for BC school support workers. After a one-week strike in late March, 18,000 workers were legislated back to work by the NDP government's Bill 7. The main issues in the strike remain unresolved, especially CUPE's demand for contracts that would establish province-wide standards for employment security, protection from contracting out, minimum four-hour shifts, and fair wages and benefits.
After the rally, the CUPE Bargaining Committee submitted the union's proposals for a settlement to Industrial Inquiry Commissioners. During the present one-month mediation process, CUPE will keep the heat on the government, with a rally against Bill 7 at the May 27 NDP Provincial Council meeting in Kamloops. The union is also calling for a province-wide rejection by locals of the April 1 Industrial Inquiry Commission report, which failed to address the root causes of the strike.
Speakers at the May 15 rally unanimously stressed that the main problem faced by the public school system in BC is underfunding from the province. The rally also emphasized that CUPE is not opposed to parent volunteers in schools, a frequent claim in the corporate media, but rather that the union wants to stop the ongoing elimination of its members' jobs by school boards.
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