If you're picking up or dropping off kids at a Catholic school in Windsor-Essex, you might want to give yourself a little extra time.
Support staff represented by Unifor Local 2458 are on strike, and it's causing traffic backups at some schools.
"Leave a little bit early if you can," says Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board spokesman Stephen Fields. "Expect that you're going to deal with delays when you get to one of our schools."
Kristina Chapman says there was a long line up at St.Anne's Secondary School in Belle River Monday morning when she dropped her daughter off at school.
"Traffic was all the way up Oakwood, past I.C. Roy," says Chapman. "They weren't letting the buses go by so kids had to get off the bus and walk up to St.Anne's."
Once her daughter was inside, the wait wasn't over. Students were asked to wait in the cafeteria until their homeroom teachers came for them.
Fields says teachers are expected to cross the picket line.
"That being said, teachers are facing the same delays as parents and everybody else when they're trying to get into those schools," he says. "There have been some difficulties."
About 370 office, clerical, technical, maintenance and custodial staff walked off the job Monday morning after their strike deadline passed at 12:01am Monday without a contract. Fields isn't sure when the two sides will get back to the bargaining table.
"At our last round of negotiations, on October 7 we tabled what we thought was a very generous offer, and have not received anything back in terms of a written response from Unifor."
Fields isn't sure where picket lines will be Tuesday morning. He says the union doesn't typically tell school board officials.