SFL Convention Day Two: CUPE Education Workers Hold Minister Accountable For Unsafe Conditions for Workers and Students
Karla Sastaunik, chairperson of the CUPE Saskatchewan Education Workers Steering Committee stood with Dene Nicholson, President of local 8443 to call out minister Ken Cheveldayoff on the dangerous conditions in Saskatchewan’s schools.
Sastaunik pushed back on the Minister’s claims that safety in schools is a priority for the Saskatchewan Party Government; “Educational Assistants are being asked to perform medical procedures as serious as catheterization and the most training they’ve received is a YouTube video. Minister would you want someone catharizing you who learned how from a YouTube video?”.
CUPE education workers explained that workers are regularly bitten, punched and are fearful about going to work every day. That the cuts to educational assistants across the province have made classrooms more dangerous not only for the folks who work in them, but for the students who learn in them. CUPE Saskatchewan’s Education Worker Steering Committee repeated it’s plea for the Minister to develop a task force to address the dangerous conditions in Saskatchewan’s schools.
The Minister left immediately after Sastaunik’s question claiming a scheduling conflict.