SFU Child Care Society workers will return to work under new agreement
Oct 12 '07
BCGEU

Striking early childhood educators at SFU Child Care Society have voted in favour of accepting a mediated settlement. Child care services for approximately 270 families will resume Monday.

"This strike has been about equity," says BCGEU bargaining chair Ursula Clark. "Equity in providing the fair wages and benefits that we as qualified professionals deserve, and equity in supporting the quality child care services that allow parents, especially women, to fully participate in our community and as faculty and students at Simon Fraser University."

"We thank the parents who have united so strongly and publicly in support of our issues," Clark says. "They organized a major public rally, and delivered petitions calling on the university and government to step up with child care funding. Now they are working to make proactive changes within the society to improve labour relations and financial planning.

She notes that it is "ironic that Maclean's magazine this week highlighted Simon Fraser University as one of the ‘top 100 employers' in Canada because it has on-site daycare. Throughout this job dispute, the university has refused to take any responsibility for the very services that it on the other hand promotes so vigorously in recruiting staff and students."

Parent and SFU mathematics professor Mary-Catherine Kropinski emphasizes that, "Without on-site, quality, affordable daycare for infants and young children, you will be forcing mothers to choose between having a family or having a career. The bottom line at SFU should be that this is not a choice we can afford to force people to make."

Clark says the deal turned on the employer finally withdrawing all of its demands for cuts to rights and benefits, and a longer agreement. The new three year collective agreement gives the early childhood educators a $1,250 bonus in lieu of a wage increase in the first year, plus a 2.5% increase in each of the following two years. Pension benefits that were lost in 2003, following the Campbell government's cuts to child care funding, have been partially restored.

"Our union is committed to achieving continued improvements in the child care sector," says BC Government and Service Employees' Union president George Heyman. "Our 67 members who are childhood educators at SFU are leading the way in standing strong on these issues."

The BCGEU members began rotating job action in August, then were out on full strike for the past four weeks. The members voted 82-percent in favour of ratifying this agreement.