Excerpt
Instead of teaching and caring for children - as she has done for two decades - early childhood educator Amanda Quance is currently out of work. She was fired from Charlotte Birchard Centres of Early Learning (CBCEL), an Ottawa child care centre, after trying to organize her coworkers to build their power as part of a union.
Last fall, Quance started having conversations with co-workers about challenges they face as child care workers, and how forming a union could help address them. Workers at CBCEL’s are experiencing the same province-wide child care crisis that all child care centres are facing: not enough ECEs, poverty level wages, and burnt-out workers.
“These workers want to assert some control over their workplaces and their lives. This transparent union busting tactic is exactly why these workers need the protection of a collective agreement,” said Athina Basiliadis, a unionized child care worker at another day care centre in Ottawa, and a member of CUPE’s child care committee. “The $10-a-day child care program has fundamentally changed the child care landscape for families, but it’s created an urgent crisis among workers who aren’t earning a fair wage and operators who are running deficits. Unions give workers the vehicle they need to advocate for the jobs, workplaces, and compensation we need and deserve.”
...