– Real-dollar cut in child care wages hurts workers, families, children –

TORONTO—On behalf of child care workers and the families they serve, CUPE Ontario has expressed frustration and disappointment at the continuing contempt shown by the Ford Conservatives for the vital role that child care workers play in the lives of Ontario families and the economy.

Last week the Ministry of Education released its updated Ontario Child Care and Early Years Funding Guidelines for child care centres in Ontario. Ignoring the concerns voiced for years by workers, unions and child care advocates, the Conservatives have frozen the wage floor for registered early childhood educators (RECEs) at $25.86 per hour; they have also frozen the wage ceiling for child care workers and their annual dollar-per-hour increases.

“Workers everywhere are struggling to make ends meet, yet the Ford government is making a real-dollar cut to the wages of early years educators,” said Yolanda McClean, president of CUPE Ontario. The union represents nearly 310,000 public sector workers in Ontario, including some 5000 child care workers in dedicated child care centres.

“It’s a cruel decision that will worsen the ongoing staffing crisis by forcing more child care workers – most of them racialized women – out of the sector.”

Last year, Ontario’s Auditor General estimated the province needed 10,000 more RECEs to meet the province’s child care needs. To help remedy the shortfall, CUPE is among those calling for a minimum pay rate of $35 per hour for RECEs and $28 per hour for all other child care workers.

“A wage freeze for child care workers exacerbates the staffing shortage and brings Ontario no closer to offering the promised $10-a-day child care to Ontario families,” said Kelly Poisson, chair of CUPE Ontario’s Social Service Workers Coordinating Committee.

“Child care programs across Ontario have been forced to close rooms or cap enrollment because of this severe staffing shortage,” she continued. “Some municipalities are advertising on buses to encourage RECE enrolment.

“The best way to increase the number of workers is to offer higher wages, better benefits, and WSIB coverage.”

CUPE Ontario has joined other child care advocates in calling on the provincial government to increase its funding for early learning and child care. They urge the Ford Conservatives to:

• mandate a publicly funded salary grid starting at $35 to $45 per hour for RECEs and $28 per hour for non-RECE child care staff, with pensions and benefits
• initiate a bargaining process with child care workers in the province and their unions to negotiate improved wages and working conditions
• support the growth of public and not-for-profit child care spaces and maintain restrictions on for-profit expansion, eventually phasing out for-profit operators through their conversion to not-for-profits
• resume the path to a $10-a-day cap for all families requiring child care and establish a low-barrier sliding fee scale.

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