Instead of teaching and caring for children – as she has done for two decades – early childhood educator Amanda Quance is currently out of work. She was fired from Charlotte Birchard Centres of Early Learning (CBCEL), an Ottawa child care centre, after trying to organize her coworkers to build their power as part of a union.
Last fall, Quance started having conversations with co-workers about challenges they face as child care workers, and how forming a union could help address them. Workers at CBCEL’s are experiencing the same province-wide child care crisis that all child care centres are facing: not enough ECEs, poverty level wages, and burnt-out workers.
“These workers want to assert some control over their workplaces and their lives. This transparent union busting tactic is exactly why these workers need the protection of a collective agreement,” said Athina Basiliadis, a unionized child care worker at another day care centre in Ottawa, and a member of CUPE’s child care committee. “The $10-a-day child care program has fundamentally changed the child care landscape for families, but it’s created an urgent crisis among workers who aren’t earning a fair wage and operators who are running deficits. Unions give workers the vehicle they need to advocate for the jobs, workplaces, and compensation we need and deserve.”
The unionization push had made strong inroads among parents, as fair treatment of workers goes hand-in-hand with high quality child care. Quance was one of its most vocal leaders, and in response to her firing, hundreds of parents, child care workers, and allies signed an online petition demanding she be reinstated and dozens joined a solidarity picket outside of the Westboro site.
CUPE – which represents over 5,500 child care workers across Ontario – has welcomed hundreds of child care workers in recent months, as workers assert agency amidst the financial uncertainty in their sector. In December, more than 300 child care workers at the Learning Enrichment Foundation joined CUPE after their pay was unilaterally cut. Over 125 workers across 17 Good Beginnings daycare sites in Woodstock joined CUPE in February. Most recently, another 125 child care workers across four Toronto Day Care Connection centres joined CUPE in April.
“Unions can be a constructive force. We embraced it when our workers started to talk about organizing, and we are a better workplace for it,” said Alana Powell, executive director of the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario (AECEO), which joined CUPE in 2023. “When workers have a voice, they bring their creativity and passion to improve the workplace.”
CUPE is pursuing all legal options to have Quance reinstated while the organizing drive at CBCEL moves forward.
