Increased wage along with access to overtime and improvements to pay are a few of the benefits negotiated on during the custodial ratified collective agreement at the Hanover School Division. The four-year agreement with the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC) will become effective July 1 and include a two-percent increase in wages along with an extended health benefits plan.

Geoff Dueck Thiessen is the Regional Director with CLAC and says they were able to work well with the school division during negotiations, something that has not necessarily always been the case.

"It was sometimes a little harder to get an agreement on increasing wages," notes Dueck Thiessen. "The last round of bargaining we did a job factor rating with them which measures people's jobs according to various factors, then you can compare them more easily to other similarly ranked or scored jobs. That was helpful in figuring out where this group needed to see improvements and where maybe, they didn't."

Another benefit added to the agreement was additional family sick leave. Dueck Thiessen says it's normal for the school division to have paid sick leave and even to have a few days to look after sick dependants, but they have added additional days for employees to take care of their parents.

"It used to be just your dependent children and now realizing that people have elderly parents to look after. You can use up to three days a year of paid sick leave to look after sick parents, which, I think, is a really progressive move and acknoledges that as people get older they have to look after not only their kids but also their parents."

He notes this will relieve a lot of stress for people who would otherwise have to give up pay to bring a parent to a doctor's appointment or help them through a health crisis.

The custodial department in the Hanover School Division currently employees approximately 75 people.