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…

Update on NSSBCU Wage Harmonization

Since the ratification of collective agreements in May and June we have begun the process of harmonizing wages across the province. The goal is to raise the hourly rate for education support staff up to the highest rate within each classification, where there is a reasonable comparator. The joint union-employer committee has met six times since mid-June to review classifications of all support staff in the k-12 sector in Nova Scotia. At our last meeting, on October 31, we discussed one classification from the student support group and the student supervision classifications. To date, we have discussed 7 of the classification groupings: Secretarial (except for the Account Clerk) Technology Student support (except for CYCP & Parent Navigator) Property Services Transportation Library services Student supervision We have not yet reviewed the cafeteria classifications. We have agreement in principle on 8 different classifications in the Secretarial, Student Support and Library Services groups. … Read more…