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The Looming Alberta Teachers’ Strike in Context.
Most education politicos are well aware that a very significant labour dispute is roiling Alberta K12 education this summer, and now into the fall. Final mediation is over with, but no deal is in sight. Teachers rejected the mediator's report. They then passed a strike vote by 94.5%. That gives them the right to strike in 120 days without a deal. As of August 28 a new impasse emerged. The TEBA (employers side, officially Teachers’Employer Bargaining Association) indicated that they would not move on salary saying ‘’they intend to have competitive wages but not leading wages.’’The TEBA position is 2% raises in each year 2024-2026, and a ‘’study group’’around teacher workload and class complexity, but no binding class size caps or reductions plus modest increases in substitute teacher pay.
Alberta Teachers Association, the union, wants 3-4% annual increases, binding measures on class sizes, fewer ‘’off the clock duties’’ and a better deal for substitutes.
ATA must give 72 hours notice of a strike. An ATA strike is likely to follow an escalating work-to-rule, then rotating strikes, followed by a province wide strike. Mid September is the earliest possible strike date. The strike mandate expires in October and ATA would need a new mandate after that. Apparently now, TEBA has voted 47-13 to lockout the teachers. This tactic would probably be implemented if teachers began a slow, escalating action in hopes that the teachers, who would not now be paid, would become more malleable. It would bring the situation to a head quickly.
At the root of the problem is the pathetic per pupil funding situation in one of Canada's richest provinces. The chart below is taken from StatsCan data. The Canadian average PPF is
$15,771
It’s clear to most, that if Alberta funded its schools like New Brunswick, the financial aspects of the negotiations could be settled. Wages are a significant issue. In a high wage province, Alberta teachers have fallen from near the top to near the bottom under the UCP of Danielle Smith.
Although wages are critical, education management often dig in their heels over perceived ‘’management rights’’ such as classroom staffing, which management sees as their exclusive prerogative and sees demands to challenge these rights in bargaining as a challenge to their legitimacy. They find it much easier to give on salary, even though the Supreme Court has ruled in a BC case, that teachers have the right to bargain staffing rules. In fact, both BC and Ontario teachers have been to the Supreme Court in recent years, over back to work orders and imposed contracts so maybe it's time for some defiance.
Classroom composition and class size have become major issues. Disruptive, disrespectful, even violent behaviour has surged since the covid pandemic. Nobody can pin down one single cause but the suspects include the pandemic, social media, cellphone and screen addiction, income polarization, ‘’gentle parenting’’ an increase in anxiety and depression, students identified as on the spectrum, and an overall hopelessness that has engulfed much of the population. Whatever it is, it has made teaching very difficult and needs answers. Teacher retention and recruitment is in trouble.
Zooming out, we need to put this Alberta teachers labour dispute in a broader context. The recently concluded Flight Attendants’ strike between CUPE and Air Canada was, on one hand, a breakthrough as the principle of pay for all work time was established but the astonishing feature was the defiance of the federal government back to work order. This is, hopefully, a major blow to back to work orders generally for teachers, postal workers, Teamsters at the railroads and shipyards, with new contracts due with BC Government Workers (BCGEU) Westjet v CUPE, Ontario Building Trades, and many unionized couriers.
Canadian workers are in a fighting mood after years of slow wage growth that have not kept pace with sky high prices for food, housing and transportation.
The major problem in Canada, and elsewhere, is that wages are just too damn low, and workers are fed up with it. If the NDP doesn’t see this labour turmoil as a heaven sent opportunity to re-establish itself as the voice of labour it will be a major opportunity missed.
