It’s not just teachers that find themselves looking for work as a result of provincial funding cuts to education.
Twenty-two support workers with the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board have been told their jobs will cease to exist at the end of the school year.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1479 represents the men and women that will soon be looking for work.
Support workers fill a range of positions in the school board, ranging from custodians to educational assistants and youth workers.
The local has about 700 members and a little over 50 of them showed up at the school board offices in Napanee just before a trustee meeting to show their displeasure.
WATCH: (May 19, 2019) Around 30 protest provincial budget cuts at Queen’s Park
Local 1479 president Kevin French says their issue isn’t with the school board, it’s with Premier Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservative government at Queen’s Park.
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French doesn’t buy into the provincial government argument that fiscal belt-tightening is needed to eliminate an almost $12 billion deficit.
“Ontario doesn’t have a spending problem. Ontario has a revenue problem,” French said. “So when you go and make cuts to education, it’s our kids’ future that’s in jeopardy.”
French says it’s more than the laid off employees that are affected by the job cuts.
“It is devastating,” French said. “These people all have families, but the most important thing is these are the front line workers that help your kids every day.”
The job losses are taking place in the midst of Local 1479 and Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District school board contract negotiations.
The current contract expires at the end of August just before the start of the 2019-20 school year.
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