2 December 2023
With not enough working hours, school support staff live with persistent uncertainty. Sometimes they find themselves only a few hours away from a breaking point. It’s hard to make ends meet with the rising cost of living when you work only twenty (20) hours a week. Fédération du personnel de soutien scolaire (FPSS-CSQ) President Éric Pronovost says: “under these conditions, the impact is direct and it is unacceptable that workers have difficulty feeding their families.”
A Living Wage
Treasury Board data shows that the average annual school support staff salary in 2023 is $26,484.
In its 2023 edition of what constitutes a living wage, the Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques (IRIS) determined that a living wage for a single person is somewhere ranges between $27,047 in the Saguenay and $37,882 in Sept-Îles. For an adult with one child, single parent mothers, for example, it ranges between $39,895 in Trois-Rivières and $50,067 in Sept-Îles.
Éric Pronovost says, “the Prime Minister keeps saying he wants to help people earning less than $52,000, but we don’t see such money on the horizon. It’s not only a matter of hourly wages, it’s also about the number of working hours. We still have positions with a small number of working hours.”
Take a Second Job or Find a New One
“Our members are being hit hard by the rising cost of living, forced to live with the consequences of having to make the heartbreaking choice between either quitting their job or looking for a second one. Other sectors are competing with the public sector. Even when the salary is lower elsewhere, more working hours are attractive. We need to hold on to these workers to avoid an exodus of expertise,” says Pronovost.
Issues vary from one region to another. In the Gatineau region, for example, there are significant staffing needs in the federal public service and school service center workers can almost double their salary by performing the same tasks. In other regions, such as the North Shore, competition from the private sector is very strong.
“There is an urgent need to correct this situation and provide good working conditions for school support staff. Attracting and retaining school support staff requires quality jobs with full-time positions, an end to split shifts, the promotion of all school support staff jobs, family-work balance, and decent wages. Passion for our work in the education sector crumbles when minimum needs are not met,” concludes Éric Pronovost.