TORONTO – Child care workers and early childhood educators (ECEs) at the Learning Enrichment Foundation (LEF) have voted over 90 per cent in favour of joining the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
In a sector plagued by financial uncertainty and a long-running workforce crisis, the unionization of 314 ECEs and early childhood assistants at LEF’s 14 LEF’s sites across Toronto, is an important development. These new members now join more than 5,000 child care workers represented by CUPE in Ontario who are actively fighting for higher wages, better job benefits, pensions, and improved working conditions.
“Workers deserve a voice in decisions about how their workplaces operate. That becomes abundantly clear in a sector like child care where professional wages don’t reflect the value of workers’ contributions. Through organizing and joining CUPE, workers at LEF will now have a voice in their workplace and at the table to negotiate a first contract,” says Lisa Schofield, CUPE Organizer.
The delivery and implementation of the federally funded Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program has varied widely between provinces. Nova Scotia, for instance, announced in 2023 they’d be instituting funded pension plans for all child care workers while British Columbia has committed to at least a $25 per hour wage grid.
Ontario has done neither. All the while, pay, benefits, and working conditions for Ontario child care workers fall further behind other jurisdictions. It is clear that the successful expansion of early education and care in this province cannot happen without improvements to working conditions to attract and retain skilled workers. Ontario will need to add 14,700 ECEs by 2026 as child care centres face closures because they don’t see a future in the sector.
“The government has subsequently refused to implement the changes needed to address the workforce crisis,” says Christina Gilligan, a newly unionized ECE at LEF. “We’re fighting for what’s right. ECEs and workers are the very foundation through which working families survive, and corporations they need and the investments in public services that families absolutely deserve.”
CUPE is committed to qualifying affordable, publicly funded child care and expanding the protections of a union to all child care workers so they can use their voices in collective bargaining to improve their lives.
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For more information contact:
Stella Yeadon
CUPE Communications
416-839-9300
[email protected]
