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Four carpenters recently laid off by the Regina Catholic School Division are questioning how the division will finish work orders and set up portable classrooms after their last day on the job.
“There are always things breaking down in schools, and with schools getting overcrowded, there are more and more issues happening,” Paul Toniello said.
He’s one of the four carpenters who got their pink slips this week; the school division laid off three journeyman carpenters (including Toniello) and one apprentice carpenter.
Toniello said that now leaves one shop-based carpenter and one travelling, field carpenter who will be responsible for fixing the division’s schools. The school division confirmed there were 11 full-time positions in its facilities shop at the start of the school year, and there will be eight such positions when it ends in June.
In an emailed statement, the division said the layoffs were announced in its 2019-20 budget in June.
A line item in the budget’s introduction shows “3.00 Plant Operation FTE’s (full-time equivalent) from the Maintenance complement” as expenditure reductions.
The budget projects “an all-time high” enrolment of 12,223 students, which is up by 282 students (2.36 per cent) from the previous school year.
It notes that funding from the province, though up this year, has in essence only “returned to 2016-17 funding levels of approximately $1.89 billion.”
“We are working to adjust and repost for new and different trades people to meet our current facilities needs,” the division said in the statement.
“(We) plan to hire one full time equivalent position. We are working with CUPE to determine what that FTE looks like, but it could be filled by employee(s) affected by the layoffs.”
Toniello and the three other carpenters are members of CUPE local 1125. The union and the division are in the middle of working out a new collective bargaining agreement; the previous one expired on Dec. 31, 2017.
“Over the summer we move portables and link them up to the schools. We pour (concrete) piles (and) make hallways that attach the portables to existing schools,” he said of the work they normally do.
During the school year, they do “chalkboard replacement, whiteboard replacement, all kinds of maintenance issues inside the schools,” he said.
The school division said the layoffs have nothing to do with performance, that they’re only due to budget cuts.
“(It) was dictated by decisions made to be able to balance our 2019-2020 budget,” the division said in its statement.
Getting the news left Toniello and his colleagues with feelings of “shock and disbelief, and kind of a betrayal from the Catholic school board.”
He said that despite not knowing what the division will do for moving and installing portable classrooms in 2020, he noticed more contract workers being used during the summer this year.
The school division said: “We’re not in a position yet to know how many portables might be moved next summer. The division has always used contracted services (flooring, painting, construction, plumbing and electrical) to ensure facilities are maintained in the best condition possible in the very short summer break period.”
Toniello is disappointed with his union’s representation, too, saying the four of them have had little communication from union leadership.
“I believe there was no fight. They didn’t stand up for our union workers,” Toniello said.
He has six years of experience with the division; the other two journeyman carpenters each have 4 1/2 years of experience.
The apprentice carpenter worked as a caretaker in the school division for 18 years, prior to taking on the apprenticeship, Toniello said. He’s now in his fourth year of the apprenticeship.
The school division stressed that it’s hard “to lose valued employees, but we do have to ensure the students’ educational needs are met. While that certainly includes warm and friendly spaces in which to learn, we have to look first at providing needed instructional positions ahead of carpentry positions.”