DCS employees at Pugwash’s Sunset Community vote for job action

Counsellors and support staff who work with disabled adults at Sunset Community in Pugwash have voted for possible job action. The approximately 151 employees work at Sunset’s adult residential centre or in group homes and are represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 972. CUPE Representative Kim Cail says the bargaining unit has settled their local issues and took the strike vote in support of lead table bargaining, where agreement has yet to be reached on wages, pensions, benefits and contract language. “We are still very far apart on what constitutes a fair compensation package, and we have yet to discuss some important contract language such as protection from violence on the job,” says Cail. “It has been a very frustrating experience for community services employees right across the province, who are about to enter their third year without a wage increase.” CUPE Local 972 president Jeannette … Read more…

boy child with paper and coloured pencil

Join the Child Care Day of Action

Early childhood educators across Nova Scotia are participating in a Day of Action on November 30 to urge the government to honour its commitment to adding 9500 new child care spaces by March 2026. “Universal child care is within our reach in Nova Scotia,” says Nan McFadgen, president of CUPE Nova Scotia, “but we aren’t going to get there if we don’t pay child care workers a living wage with pensions and benefits.” Jennifer Chase, president of CUPE Local 3688, which represents child care workers in Bridgewater, says staff are struggling to get by. “Even employees at the top of the wage scale, with years of training, are earning less than the living wage,” says Chase. “It’s hard enough to recruit staff to cover the spaces we have now, but retaining them once they realize how difficult it is to get by is even harder.” Margot Nickerson, president of CUPE … Read more…