Earlier this month, teachers employed with Palliser School Division and Red Deer Catholic School Division voted overwhelmingly in favour of going on strike, should it come down to that.
These teachers have been without a new contract for nearly 3.5 years, since their previous contract expired in September 2020.
Bargaining between teachers and school divisions happen through a two-step process, where matters of significant cost and broad impact are negotiation centrally. Then negotiations between individual school boards and their teachers occur regarding more local matters.
Of the 61 school divisions in the province, 55 have settled collective agreements with their teachers. Palliser and Red Deer Catholic are 2 of the remaining 6 school divisions that have failed to negotiate a fair contract with their teachers.
Teachers with Palliser met on the 14th to hold their strike vote. Three-quarters of Alberta Teachers Association members employed by Palliser attended the vote, and 92% of them chose to authorize the ATA to apply for a government-supervised strike vote.
According to Natalie Townshend, the local president for the Palliser teachers, negotiators for the school division had told the teachers’ negotiation team that “there would be no bargaining table to come back to if teachers rejected their offer. It was a threat that our teachers did not take kindly to, and they strongly voted that offer down.”
The Palliser School Division employs around 700 teachers (including substitutes) in public schools in Coalhurst, Coaldale, Picture Butte, Vulcan, and surrounding areas, as well as those teaching at 17 Hutterian colony schools and in 10 alternative schools in Calgary.
Townshend said that the primary issues for teachers in bargaining for a new contract are recruitment and retention of substitute teachers, as well as compensation for teachers working in colony schools.
“We are expecting over 400 teacher days this year where teaching positions will go unfilled. When this happens, classes are combined and teachers are pulled away from doing work to prepare for lessons. Sub shortages have a real, significant impact on the quality of education students receive.”
The bargaining team for the Palliser teachers, according to Townshend, have proposed solutions to these issues that are low cost and similar to contracts recently settled in every school division in Southern Alberta that already has a contract.
Red Deer Catholic teachers also met last week. At that meeting, they were asked to vote on two issues: whether to accept the latest offer from the school board and, if so, whether to apply for a strike vote.
The teachers voted nearly unanimously (99%) to reject the offer from the school division and to authorize the strike vote.
According to Sara Lambert, the president of Red Deer Catholic Local No 80, which represents the roughly 700 contracted and substitute teachers employed by this school board, negotiators from the school divisions proposed “to strip out professional development provisions and remove up to 20 members from the agreement. They have made negotiations adversarial and antagonizing when a deal could easily be reached.”
Lambert said that the teachers are asking for improvements on issues related to substitute teachers and school administrators, and, like, Palliser teachers, they insist that their own proposals are low cost and similar to what’s seen in most other agreements in the province.
The two sides met for two days in late January, but despite 13 hours of mediated discussions, the school board refused to make any concessions on their position.
Local 80 represents teachers working at Catholic schools in Red Deer, Blackfalds, Sylvan Lake, Rocky Mountain House, Innisfail, and Olds.
In both cases, the approval of a strike vote doesn’t mean that the teachers are going on strike. It just means that the teachers have given the ATA permission to apply for a strike vote. If approved, then the teachers will vote on whether to actually go on strike.
Authorizing a strike vote increases the leverage of the negotiation team for the teachers. It allows them to tell the negotiators for the two school divisions to get back to the table, and if they don’t, they may end up having to deal with over 1,000 teachers going on strike.
For example, back in November, teachers in the Rocky View School Division rejected a mediator’s recommended terms of settlement and authorized a strike vote. Their bargaining team was able to take that to the next meeting with the school division and negotiation a better contract, which was accepted in a vote of 76% at the end of last month.
