Work-to-rule could start in schools Monday

Last-minute talks fail to produce resolution that could avoid work action

Education workers are set to start a work-to-rule campaign in Durham schools on Monday.

Last-minute contract talks were taking place over the weekend in an effort to avert the job action, but ended Sunday afternoon. Education workers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) are involved.

They include custodians, clerical staff, early childhood educators, education assistants, tradespeople and other school support staff at public and Catholic school boards in the province, including the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board and the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board.

A CUPE memo lists the duties workers will cut back under a work-to rule scenario.

For example:

> Custodians have been told to stop cleaning “ministry unfunded areas” such as school hallways, gyms and offices, as well as stop outdoor maintenance such as cutting grass and picking up garbage outside.

> Maintenance and trades employees will only do repairs if the parts are in stock and on hand.

> Education assistants will not allow a class to proceed unless a teacher is present.

> School clerical staff have been instructed not to supervise students or administer medications and not to update school websites or social media accounts.

> All affected workers have been told not answer emails, calls or texts from their boss outside work hours.

Laura Walton, president of CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions, says the job action is about protecting services for students — services she says have been “decimated” this school year.

Walton says examples include custodians being told to only vacuum kindergarten classrooms once a week and eight or nine students with special needs being supported by a single education assistant.

“If it takes job action to restore these services, then so be it,” Walton says. “This is something worth fighting for.”