Union leaders are raising concerns with hiring decisions at a new joint school in Cambridge, Ont. The property on Wesley Boulevard will welcome students from both the Waterloo Catholic District School Board (WCDSB) and the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB). The school boards say the facility is the first of its kind with the Catholic side known as Guardian Angels Catholic Elementary School while the public side is called Ginnawind Public School. However the unions representing custodial staff at both school boards say their members have not been hired to work at the Cambridge building. “It doesn’t make sense to bring in somebody that would do something at profit, that would have to also have to include overhead,” Gregory Patterson, president of CAMA-OSSTF/FEESO District 24 said. The union represents custodial and maintenance workers in the Waterloo Region District School Board. “So, it doesn’t really, financially, from outside-looking-in, make a lot of sense.” The public school is expected to welcome 519 students while the Catholic board has space for 360 students. The union said those student populations would typically warrant three fulltime custodians for the public board and two to two-and-a-half custodians for the Catholic side. In a joint statement, the boards said maintenance services for the joint school will be provided through an external service provider. “As the building will bring together students from two different school boards, WRDSB and WCDSB determined that a single service provider would provide a more straightforward approach to custodial services across the shared facility,” an emailed statement co-signed by Scott Miller, WRDSB’s director of education, and Annalisa Varano, WCDSB’s director of education, said. “This approach supports the effective operation of the joint elementary school and helps ensure that the facility is maintained consistently for all students, staff, and school community members who use the building.” Union leaders said they have heard that the Ministry of Education was involved in the decision. “We’ve been told that this is a ministry initiative and – [the school boards] were gently persuaded into the situation,” Kevin Phillips, president of Unifor Local 302, said. Unifor Local 302 serves custodial staff within the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. However, the unions said their members have been asked to work at the school several times. “Last week, when the school was getting ready to open, when the teachers came in, there were deliveries being made that our guys were instructed to come and help out with the deliveries because the custodians that are on site don’t accept deliveries, and that it was up to us to get it done. We’ve been in, hanging things on the walls, doing stuff to get the school ready for opening, and our initiative right now is do now, grieve later. So, we have been cooperative with the board in allowing our people to come here and do that,” Phillips said. “But we will grieve every time we come to this school, as we were told, we’re not supposed to be doing anything here.” CTV News reached out to the Ministry of Education about the claims, but did not receive a response back in time for publication. “Well, we’ll continue to file grievances and hopefully with the language that we have in our collective agreements that we can probably end up at an arbitrator. And an arbitrator will decide who’s going to look after the buildings,” Phillips said. OSSTF-CAMA supports about 500 full-time staff working in the public board, Unifor supports around 192 in the Catholic board. “They’re the ones who know where the gas shutoff is. They know where the water shutoff is. All of those little simple things that you think, ‘Well, yeah.’ But if you if you just got there and this is your first day, how are you supposed to vet yourself on all that plus all the duties that you are completing?” Patterson questioned. “We have started negotiation with the ministry along with all of the other union groups. But we’re in an impasse right now. And so, there hasn’t been any discussion with the ministry. Our boards are kind of reluctant to talk to us,” Phillips said.
