Monday, November 6, 2023

CLAC Addresses Misinformation Regarding Hanover School Division Administration Salaries

Steinbach, MB—Amid the ongoing Hanover School Division (HSD) educational assistants (EAs) strike, CLAC, the union representing the EAs, is addressing the tension building around wage misinformation, including the salaries of HSD administration.

Geoff Dueck Thiessen, CLAC Winnipeg Member Centre regional director, says it is important to get the facts right.

“While the provincial government’s website reports annual earnings for public employees earning over $85,000 per year, including some HSD admin staff, it doesn’t necessarily mean this is their salary,” he says. “Retroactive wage adjustments might explain large bumps between years, and CLAC does not condone personal attacks on the superintendents of HSD.”

However, Dueck Thiessen says this doesn’t address the inequity that led to the strike action.

“Teacher salary increases often set the pattern for other staff, including HSD senior admin,” he says. “And all those folks received a four-year deal, and the last year of that deal was a 3.3 percent increase. HSD held back this fourth-year increase for EAs and other support staff and are only offering it now. Other school divisions didn't do this.

“So, the lowest earning employees in the school division, the EAs, had to live through the year with the highest inflation in decades without any wage increases, while those already making a living wage received these adjustments.”

According to Dueck Thiessen, it is disheartening for EAs to hear the school division claim fairness when offering small percentage increases to both employees currently being paid living salaries and those who are just scraping by, often working several jobs to make ends meet.

“These EAs stay in this work because of their inherent sense of service and love,” says Dueck Thiessen. “And I think right now we're seeing that EAs are the glue holding the schools together, they are valuable, and they should be treated as such. That's why we’re looking for bigger adjustments than those applied to higher income earners in the division, because a percentage applied to lower wages has a much smaller impact in terms of real dollars and cents.”

CLAC Addresses Misinformation Regarding Hanover School Division Administration Salaries

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