EDMONTON - After nearly three weeks off the job, a strike involving support staff from Edmonton Catholic Schools is over. That means more than 900 employees will be back at work Tuesday morning.
Nearly 80 percent of the 729 members who voted on Monday afternoon voted in favour of the new deal. The school board later ratified the agreement in an emergency meeting that evening.
On Friday, a memorandum of agreement was reached between the school board and union.
The main sticking point through the negotiations has been wages in the second year of the contract.
Under the new deal, proposed by the school board, workers will get a lump-sum payment of $600. But if the ATA or custodial union gets an increase, support-staff workers will get the scale increase in the second year.
"We can be quite satisfied with this agreement, it does address a lot of our needs," says Danny Burrell of the CEP 52-A union. "But we will be able to continue with negotiations."
"It's a two year deal," he adds, "which means we will be getting back to this in the spring and we will be continuing our struggle and our fight for better service to our kids."
Vicky Bastide, a teacher assistant at St. Elizabeth school in Mill Woods, says she's excited about returning to work with a young boy who has Down Syndrome. While she admits the strike has been very tiring, Bastide believes it was important to stick to the union's commitment.
"To take it this far and watch people come together and really stand together and care for each other has been very rewarding and uplifting."
With files from Quinn Ohler, Global News
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