ETFO Is the Union of Choice for ECEs (Professional Services)

ECEs should  choose  ETFO as their union, according to Diane Kashin, president of  the  Association of  Early Childhood Educators  of Ontario (AECEO). “For those of you still  considering your options, I ask you to recognize the value in joining a professional union where the majority of members are  educators, that is  provincially based, and that understands and supports early learning,” Dr. Kashin urges.

Dr. Kashin is also the coordinator of the Bachelor of Early Childhood  Education  program at Seneca College. She began her  professional  career as an ECE and she told the audience that “it is as an ECE that I am speaking to you today.” Despite the critical importance of early learning to a child’s development, ECEs are  amongst the  lowest-paid educators. For years the system has been based on compensation tied to the ages of  the students being taught, she  said. Those who teach the youngest students receive the lowest wages and the least recognition, even though they  “teach  when the greatest window of learning exists.” “Our field needs to emerge from undervalued obscurity and evolve to  professionalization  and we need to  do it now,” Dr. Kashin said. She noted that the first ECE diplomas were  granted in Ontario 40 years ago. ECEs  now approaching  retirement have  little  economic security.  Few have pensions  and low wages have made saving for retirement difficult.  ECEs’ low wages have subsidized the child care system, Dr.  Kashin said. One reason is because  most ECEs are not union members.

She told her audience that professional  unions such as ETFO allow  members to practise their profession, give them a voice, and improve the recognition they receive for their work.  She urged ECEs to become  activists in  fighting  for themselves.  “Uniting with one voice and assuming  a more assertive stand” means there is “no limit to the transformation possible in the profession,” she said. But if the workforce is  scattered  among multiple unions, the potential of a strong collective voice is lost.