As provincial governments restructure and downsize public schools and post secondary education, the new right wing agenda to privatize public education under the guise of �freedom of choice�, is no where more advanced than in Alberta under the Ralph Klein government.
The provincial government last year introduced a school act that allowed for publicly funded private schools: �charter schools�, forced school board consolidation and stripped the consolidated public boards of their right to collect taxes, mandated parent controlled school councils and introduced province wide school based budgeting.
Edmonton�s Public School Board has had school based budgeting (also known as site based management) for the past 16 years. We were the first school board district in North America to introduce this approach to school funding. While it�s promoted as decentralizing administration to each school in Edmonton custodial, support staff, and maintenance workers have found that this is simply a way for the bureaucracy to pass down their deficit to the school level.
For the past 16 years custodial workers, in particular, have been subjected to increased job reductions, as well as reductions in hours of work, as school based budgeting expanded and provincial funding was reduced.
In the past three years the Edmonton Public School Board has also made a concerted effort to follow the latest in so called educational reforms and trends, which include contracting out and privatization of schools.
The 600 custodial workers in Edmonton�s public schools are members of CUPE Local 474 and through their union they have launched a very public campaign to prevent the contracting out of their jobs. The campaign has become an integral part of the union�s political and organizational focus, it has included public relations and community out reach as well as research, educational and action orientated activities directed at the membership.
Entitled: WE�RE CUPE, WE CARE FOR EDMONTON�S PUBLIC SCHOOLS, the campaign has produced two major public briefs. One on the failures of school based budgeting entitled; TAKE A LOOK the other on privatization and contracting out appropriately entitled: PRIVATIZING SCHOOLS. IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST? Several thousand copies of the studies were distributed to the public via the public library and direct mailings to community organizations, churches and parent councils.
As well the local has used billboards and bus shelter signs to get out their message that contracting out leads to dirty schools, lower student achievement and higher taxes.
In 1994 after signing a memorandum of intent of no contracting out with the union, the trustees on the school board turned around and moved and motion to look into contracting out the custodial services in about 70 of the districts 200 schools. They further passed another motion to look at the potential of completely privatizing at least one school: teachers, support staff, maintenance and custodial. The unions study; PRIVATIZING SCHOOLS, was direct result of the boards actions.
In 1995 the newly appointed Superintendent of Schools, Emery Dosdall, approached the union with his �win-win� solution to the Trustees motion; the board and union would cooperate on a joint study of contracting out. He suggested that rather than the original seventy schools twenty schools would be part of the project, some contracted out compared to those cleaned by in house custodial workers. The union was given the ultimatum that it was this or all seventy schools would be contracted out.
At a special meeting attended on a Saturday (normaly a day off for the majority of custodial workers), over 400 members showed up to discuss the issue. The choice was between a wildcat strike or coming back to the board with a counter proposal. The majority supported the counter proposal.
The union came back to the board, with a proposal, making it clear we still objected to contracting out. In this case only ten schools would be involved in the pilot project, five contracted out, five in-house. The schools would be comparable, in size age and be either elementary or junior highs. No union members would lose their jobs because of the pilot project. No other schools or board buildings would be contracted out during the pilot project.
A joint union management committee would oversee the project, and two independent evaluators would be hired ( one by the union and one by management) to give an objective evaluation. No board supplies or equipment would be left in the contracted out schools and staffing levels would have to be the same as they were prior to the contractor coming in. While the board wanted to only do the project for one year the union insisted on a 17 month project, so that it went beyond August of 1996 when our contract with the Board expires.
The membership also supported continuing and expanding our WE CARE Campaign, as a way of countering the boards plans.
In the summer of 1996 Local 474 in cooperation with CUPE Local 30 (the City of Edmonton Outside workers) hired social activist playwright Jane Heather to write and produce a play on contracting out and privatization based on our members and their lives. The resulting play; RUNNING, was produced during the Edmonton Fringe theatre Festival, the largest theatre festival in North America.
It showed the human face of contracting out, downsizing and life in Klein�s Alberta. The play got local as well as national coverage, bringing our issues out to the public.
Following the Fringe we launched a two part bus shelter sign campaign coinciding with the Municipal elections, which includes school board trustees. The signs again attacked contracting out and asked voters to make it an issue in the elections. We further mobilized our membership to get out and work on campaigns, and to vote for trustees opposed to contracting out. We made it one of the major issues of the election.
It was victory celebration for the local when the majority of trustees elected were those opposed to contracting out.
In August 1996, we began a new round of negotiations. And we have continued our WE CARE campaigns.
We will be had an entry in the annual Klondike Days Parade, a series of puppets of custodial workers and students, promoting public education. The puppets are being designed in cooperation with Peter Field who designed the corporate puppets for the SFL. This is the first time a union has been in the K Days Parade, and it was not without some controversy.
We will also be returning to the Fringe, but not with a play. Due to increased government funding cuts the Fringe has had to reduce the amount of theatre sites available for shows. One of those cut last years was the very popular Kids Fringe. CUPE Locals representing custodial, city and hospital workers in Edmonton have joined together to fund the Kids Fringe this year. Once again giving us a large public presence.
Rather than accepting there is no alternative to contracting out and losing our jobs, our campaign has mobilized and revitalized our members in a fight back that has challenged not only so called educational reforms but the whole right wing agenda of privatization and contracting out.
Eugene W. Plawiuk is a Head Custodian with Edmonton Public Schools. He is a member of the Executive of CUPE Local 474. He is a regular contributor to Labour News, the monthly newspaper of the Alberta Federation of Labour, and a member of the AFL Education Committee.
Copies of CUPE Local 474 briefs on Site Based Management and Privatization/Contracting Out are available from the local. Call (403) 424-9696 or fax (403) 426-6202
An edited version of this article was originally published September 1996,in Briarpatch Magazine.
EDMONTON PUBLIC SCHOOL CUSTODIAL WORKERS FIGHT BACK AGAINST CONTRACTING OUT is the work and sole property of Eugene
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