Just days away from being back to school, the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) and Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association (TEBA) have both announced that formal negotiations have ended.
The Calgary Board of Education (CBE) remains prepared for the school year as usual on Tuesday, Sept. 2.
In a statement from CBE Chief Superintendent Joanne Pitman shared with CBE families after the Aug. 29 press conferences, Pitman said that the board is committed to sharing information with families whenever possible, with the most up-to-date information available on the CBE’s labour action web page.
“We look forward to an incredible year of learning,” the statement read.
The Calgary Catholic School District did not provide a comment when asked.
With a 72-hour notice needed before job action, ATA President Jason Schilling said a strike isn’t likely before schools start province-wide next week.
The final offer made between the two parties included things like hiring 1,000 teachers annually for the next three years and a 12 per cent salary increase over four years, conditions that Minister of Finance Nate Horner said the ATA offered in June, but has now rejected.
Schilling said that while some details were matched, other parts of previous proposals were ignored.
“There are other elements within the mediators’ recommended settlements that were not addressed by government when they came back to the table this last week, and those things need to be addressed by government as well,” he said.
“You can’t just fix half the problem, you need to fix the entire problem. Our team, knowing that teachers had already turned down the majority of what was presented to them before, decided that this was the end of our conversation for the week.”
From the TEBA’s standpoint, the offer was based heavily on comparative data from provinces west of Ontario, according to Horner, who said that if accepted, the offer would put Alberta’s teachers right at market value.
“We don’t want labor unrest; we want kids in schools. We’ve tried to come with a fair offer, that’s what’s on the table,” he said.
“Depending where this goes, I don’t see that offer changing, because the data doesn’t show that it should.”
Schilling said that while the offer reflects current nationwide numbers, the ATA is looking to recoup salary lost to inflation, with a consistent pace moving forward.
“We had a conversation about market value with teachers and we see what other teachers are making across provinces, and they make more than Alberta teachers. They have seen increases within the last decade that outpace Alberta teachers,” he said.
“We can sit down and have a conversation about any of the data points government wants to sit down and have a conversation about, but we need to get to the table, and it needs to be a serious conversation with the government willing to look and understand and stick to their words with actions about how they value and respect Alberta’s teachers.”
Less teachers and higher salaries not brought to the table: ATA
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said that the ATA has offered conditions that would lessen the annual teachers hired in exchange for increased individual salaries.
“They’ve said that we need to hire more teachers, and we’ve agreed to that. Now, however, they’re saying something different, which is that we actually need increased wages,” Nicolaides said.
“We’re trying to get a better understanding from them of precisely what they’re looking for.”
Schilling said that the increased salary for fewer hiring trade-off was not tabled during bargaining negotiations, and didn’t detail what salary increases, if any, the ATA was looking for when asked.
“They (teachers) want to make up for lost inflation and keep pace with current inflation, the exact number that teachers are looking for, I’ll leave that to negotiating at the table, because that’s where that conversation should be had, not within the media talking about specific numbers, because that just creates a bunch of speculation and around that topic,” he said.
“It’s disingenuous to say that we only care about wages at this point, when we have been talking about classroom sizes, classroom complexity, benefits and leaves and other things that we would talk about, including wages.”
