Today the Manitoba Government announced the funding increases school divisions should expect for the coming year. While the funding increases provide stable, predictable support for school divisions, CUPE will continue to advocate for individual school divisions to ensure adequate supports for students and staff.
“CUPE believes building supports for students and education support staff should be the top priority for school divisions in the coming year,” said Gina McKay, President of CUPE Manitoba.
CUPE Manitoba has been advocating for several improvements for education support workers, including addressing the wage gap between rural and urban school divisions.
“Rural education support staff earn on average between $4.01 and $6.46 per hour less than their urban counterparts,” noted McKay, citing a 2023 research report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
“We also need to see school divisions ensure access to improved retirement security for education support staff, including defined benefit plans to bring them in line with other education workers like teachers”.
CUPE has raised these issues directly with the province, and will be raising them again at a provincial budget consultation on February 10th.
School Divisions in Manitoba have the ability to levy additional resources on top of the province’s increased funding commitments to offer improved programming and services to students.
“Under the previous government’s funding cuts, we’ve seen job and service cuts,” said McKay, noting that children’s literacy services in divisions like River East-Transcona School Division have seen job cuts to library technicians.
“With a new provincial government’s commitment to funding schools and Divisions’ ability to levy funding, there should be no reason we cannot restore these important jobs that were cut under the PCs”.
Details on the government announcement can be found here.