On January 17th, CUPE Local 3060 President Brittany Aube sat down in a meeting with the Manitoba Minister of Education, Wayne Ewasko, PC MLA for Brandon East, Len Isleifson, as well as employer of Children’s Den and President of the Brandon and District Labour Council. It was nice having a meeting face to face to talk about the issues that the childcare sector is facing as well as share ideas on how we can better the outcome for this sector. Wayne Ewasko shared things that have already been done in the sector as of the last year and also admits that there are some faults that have happened, communications and things that could have been done better. He also recognized that there is a huge shortage of workers in the field and the struggles and long road ahead we have to fix the main issues. He let us know that there are a lot of beneficial announcements to come as well as hopefully some better direction to help with childcare facilities in their future planning. Sitting down and being able to have this conversation is huge for us as a local as well as a sector. We will continue to hold the Government parties accountable in their promises to the Child Care Sector. Brittany also expressed that since the childcare sector has been amalgamated with the education sector, perhaps the need for Unionization for all childcare is necessary to ensure that workers are protected under a Collective Agreement.
We will continue to advocate on behalf of our Local and Sector. The more we can educate our members, get involved with the movement, and start advocating on behalf of ourselves as workers, the better and possibly quicker outcomes we will start to see.
