The approximately 550 crossing guards who help children every day through the streets near schools have been laid off by the City of Montreal due to strikes in the education sector, we have learned The Press. They will have to turn to employment insurance if the labor conflict continues, but the City of Montreal says it is looking into “solutions”.
Since Tuesday morning and for an indefinite period, the crossing guards have no longer been paid, confirms the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents these workers who earn around $16,000 per year.
“I’m trying to fight with the City right now, but we don’t want to have anything to do with paying them,” said Marie-Claude Lessard, union advisor at CUPE.
In the office of Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, it is indicated that this was “provided for in the employment contract” of the brigadiers.
“We negotiated an agreement with the union which increased salaries, everyone was happy. There, we have a situation that is beyond our control with a strike by the public service of the Quebec government. We find solutions,” says Marikym Gaudreault, press secretary to the mayor.
On the CUPE side, we say that this is a decision that has no equal elsewhere in Quebec.
“Quebec, Trois-Rivières, Gatineau, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Brossard, Saint-Bruno” continue to pay their brigadiers, despite the strike in the education sector, says Marie-Claude Lessard.
Those in Montreal will have to take “storm days” for the first three days of the strike, then will have to apply for employment insurance on Friday.
Montreal teachers will be on an indefinite general strike from this date, but schools have been closed since Tuesday due to the Common Front strike, which includes among its ranks school staff other than teachers.
School crossing guards in the metropolis are paid $20.01 per hour. They work an average of 20 hours per week – hours split into three shifts per day – for 40 weeks per year. Most of these brigadiers are over 50 years old.
Recruitment has proven difficult in recent years, to the point that police officers from the City of Montreal Police Department have had to carry out these tasks themselves at a significantly higher hourly rate.
According to the union, there is a shortage of around 70 crossing guards in Montreal. We fear that if the conflict continues, between 10 to 20% of the brigadiers will decide to work elsewhere and we have proposed to the City of Montreal to have the brigadiers do community work while waiting for the conflict to end.
“In any case, it’s budgeted,” says Marie-Claude Lessard. “They don’t want to,” she adds.