The Canadian Union of Public Employees says its front line education support workers have been left out of the government’s latest announcement regarding plans to add additional health workers to phases one and two of the vaccine rollout.
Rob Westfield, chair of CUPE Saskatchewan’s Education Workers’ Steering Committee says, “We don’t understand why education workers have once again been ignored.”

CUPE says casual education workers were never given a bubble of schools to work in, and as a result, a regular work schedule could mean working in up to 40 schools in a month. Education workers have also been left out of the communication and contact tracing process.

The union says that over the past several months, there have been a number of incidents where educational assistants were not notified that a student they were in contact with tested positive because public health did not consider them a close contact.

And now, the union says, the government is telling education workers that they will have to wait to get vaccinated.