Zaid Noorsumar

The union is asking for better wages, paid sick days and safer working conditions.

Ottawa janitor Natalie Guitead works three jobs; moonlighting as a nanny and an event planner to make ends meet.

Canadian janitor Lyle Skrapek talks about injuries, the physical toll working takes on his body, and the invisibility of his job.

The physical challenges of custodial jobs are hard to overstate. Lyle Skrapek says that sometimes at the end of the day, he feels like he has played a game of hockey.

CUPE represents approximately 55,000 support staff in the province including special needs assistants, early childhood educators and custodians.

Unions have improved job conditions for many janitors, but spiralling costs of living require people in the low-wage sector to work themselves to exhaustion and forgo time with their families.

The NDP is the only federal party promising to establish national standards -- although it will face an uphill task in that endeavour.

Deteriorating working conditions in long-term care combined with poor wages have led to a severe personal support worker shortage -- making the situation even worse.

The only Tim Hortons in the small northern Ontario town of Fort Frances unionized this year.

Read what happened last week in the Canadian labour movement in rabble's roundup for September 23, 2019.