Support staff workers within the Chilliwack school district have ratified a new five-year agreement that provides them a 5.5 per cent wage increase over the life of the contract.
The CUPE staff were among 3,800 support workers in eight school districts to ratify the new deal.
The contract runs from July, 2014 to June 30, 2019, and offers the potential for additional increases if the B.C. economy exceeds the annual forecasts set by the Economic Forecast Council during the last four years of the agreement.
Ratification of the new contract will come as welcome news to many local CUPE workers. Once the deal is ratified by the Chilliwack school board, CUPE employees within the district will be reimbursed for all scheduled hours that they were not paid during the BCTF strike.
To date approximately 19,600 support staff workers in 44 school districts have fully ratified agreements in place. According to the education ministry, this represents about 57 per cent of the total support staff workers in B.C. school districts. The remaining districts are working to ratify agreements by November.