Members of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union Local 70

School support staff from the Annapolis Valley and South Shore have now both been striking for over a week as they seek a contract that offers them wage parity with other regional centres of education.

Upon the switch from school boards to regional centres for education contract negotiations became the responsibility of individual centres leading to different pay structures being established.

Now the early childhood educators, finance staff, IT staff and other support workers say the disparity between regions is too much and the time for change is now.

“We don’t even have wage parity with the Annapolis Valley who we border, then you go to Halifax is a whole different category, then you go to another district and it’s different again,” said Bridgewater Stike Lead Erin Russel.

“It’s not a regional centre problem though, it’s a provincial one as the government are the ones telling them what to do,” Russel explained.

To that end, both Annapolis Valley and the South Shore strikes will be heading to Halifax on Thursday to demonstrate in front of the provincial legislature.

The strike has not forced schools to close at this point but in many cases, students who rely on support workers have not been attending due to the lack of support currently available in SSRCE and AVRCE schools.

Russel said that the strikers are eager to find a solution as they aren’t happy to be picketing and not getting paid all while students they care about are missing out on the valuable resources they offer to schools.