Educational assistants have a new five-year agreement.

The agreement was signed between the Hanover School Division and the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC) and Regional Director Geoff Dueck Thiessen says every workplace changes overtime and the agreement was to reflect the demands of workers and the realities of inflation.

The agreement included annual wage increases, enhancements to education wage premiums, additional paid sick-leave days, improvements to vacation pay and eligibility criteria for bereavement, medical and personal leaves.

According to HSD the salary increases are 2% year one, three and five, 1.5% in year two and 1.5% in January and September of year four. Sick leave balance is increased by five days and there are additional unpaid personal days.

"In the education sector there is a bit of a pattern that happens throughout all school divisions in the province," explains Dueck Thiessen. "Most education, whether it be teachers or support staff, throughout the province generally get a pretty similar cost of living adjustment every year. Then if there is a special adjustment that's required to fix soemthing that's not quite working, then those happen as well."

He says the adjustment to vacation pay is the continuation of fixing something that needed a boost. 

Dueck Thiessen says it was a rewarding round of negotiations where the union and employer were able to be professional and productive in bargaining so everyone was happy with the end decision.

The five-year agreement is retro-active to September 1, 2014 and expires August 31, 2019.