CANADA, September 16 - A provincial tentative framework agreement under the Shared Recovery Mandate has been reached between the BC Public School Employers’ Association and the K-12 Presidents’ Council representing support staff throughout the province’s 60 school districts. 

The tentative agreement covers approximately 40,000 unionized support staff working in a variety of positions, including education assistants, custodians, trades and maintenance workers, and Indigenous support workers, and those working in clerical, accounting and information technology positions.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is the largest union representing support staff in the K-12 sector and on the Presidents’ Council.

Negotiations under the Shared Recovery Mandate support government’s key priorities to improve public services and the health-care system, while supporting the Province’s continued economic recovery for all.

The provincial framework agreement represents one part of the local agreements for support staff and negotiations at the district level will now get underway.

More than 500,000 people work across the provincial public sector in the core public service, at Crown corporations, in health, community social services, kindergarten-to-Grade 12 public education and at post-secondary institutions and research universities.

Of those people, approximately 393,000 are unionized employees paid under collective agreements or professionals paid through negotiated compensation agreements.