OCBCC: Child Care Worker and Early Childhood Educator Appreciation Day
The following is from the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care.
Today marks the 22nd annual Child Care Worker and Early Childhood Educator Appreciation Day. Today is a day to celebrate early years professionals and their vitally important work in our communities.
Today we are also joining together to say that ECEs and child care workers are WORTH MORE. We need a provincial workforce strategy and salary scale starting at $25 per hour for all child care workers and $30 per hour for RECEs as part of the new publicly funded Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care system.
Here are three ways you can take action to support ECEs and child care workers:
- Use our one-click tool to write your MPP and tell them that ECEs and child care workers deserve decent work and pay including a salary scale.
- Download and print our Worth More flyer in English and French. Put it on your child care centre’s bulletin board or window. Share it with families. Send it to your MPP.
- Save the date for the National Day of Action for the Child Care Workforce on November 30th 2022. ECEs, parents, child care advocates and allies will be raising our voices together from coast to coast to demand decent work and pay for ECEs. In Ontario, we will be organizing Worth More events and actions at child care centres across the province and at Queen’s Park. Watch out for updates on the Day of Action.
There is still time to nominate a special ECE or child care worker that you know. You can tell us about the person you are nominating and the incredible work they do on this form. We want to hear about their impact! Send your nominations until the end of the day on Oct. 18th. Winners will be selected at random (10 nominees, 10 nominators) to receive $50 gift cards.
If you are sharing your appreciation online, be sure to tag us so that we can amplify all of the voices speaking up for ECEs and child care workers today.
As always, we thank our Appreciation Day sponsors for helping us provide free and low-cost Appreciation Day materials for child care programs across the province. Thanks to our sponsors: Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario; Ontario Public Service Employees Union; Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario; Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation; Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association; Unifor; Ontario Federation of Labour; Society of United Professionals; and United Steelworkers.
