Following a strong strike mandate from office workers at the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board, custodians have also signed off on strike action.
Both employee groups, represented by Unifor Local 2458, voted in the past week whether to support strike action if necessary. Office workers approved it by a margin of 97% last Wednesday while custodians gave their union a strike mandate of 99%.
Local President Bruce Dickie says it's not that talks with the school board haven't gone well; they've barely got off the ground.
He says the contract expired back in 2014, but the board wanted to reach a contract with its teachers first. Meetings didn't even start until last November, and when they did, Dickie says board officials didn't present any proposals.
"This employer then filed for conciliation with not even telling us what their issues are," he says. "[They] came to the conciliation meeting a couple of weeks ago and told us they'd email their proposals. [That is] absolutely unheard of in labour relations."
Dickie says unless something changes, the workers could find themselves on the picket line by the end of the month.
"We'll know this week on the no-board report. 17 days after the no-board report comes in, you're in a legal lockout or strike position."
The workers would like a wage increase. Dickie says their wages have been frozen the past two years, but "at this point, we haven't had any discussions whatsoever."