There’s no way to suggest a 94.5-per-cent strike vote by nearly 39,000 Alberta teachers doesn’t represent a pretty solid negotiating mandate for their union.
Alberta Teachers Association President Jason Schilling announced the results of the vote, which took place between Thursday and Sunday, in an online news conference yesterday, after which the ATA published a press release.
“By voting to strike, teachers are sending an unmistakable message: we are united, we are determined, and we will no longer hold up a crumbling public education system,” the news release said.
At yesterday’s afternoon news conference, Mr. Schilling several times emphasized that Alberta now has the lowest per-student education funding of any Canadian province. (Figures from Statistics Canada from the 2022-23 school year show average per-student funding in Alberta was $11,464, more than 16 per cent below the national average of $13,692. Alberta’s been at the bottom of the national scale since 2019.)
And while Mr. Schilling wouldn’t tell reporters when he thought a strike might happen if a deal can’t be reached – that’s up to the union’s Provincial Executive Council, he explained – it’s worth noting that under Alberta labour law the ATA now has 120 days during which its members can hit the bricks after 72 hours’ notice.
Sept. 2, when students are scheduled to return to school, is only 83 days away. So draw your own conclusions about when the union might be most likely to strike if an impasse is reached in negotiations.
Finance Minister Nate Horner might have been wiser, therefore, to keep his lips zipped and let the ATA and the Teachers Employer Bargaining Association have an opportunity to reach a deal without putting his oar in. Arguably both sides have reasons to be anxious to reach an agreement. The ATA and TEBA are scheduled to meet at the end of next week and again in August if necessary.
Before the end of the day, though, Mr. Horner had made a statement to media that started with the traditional claim about how much the United Conservative Party Government respects “teachers, principals, system leaders and school divisions.”
Then he moved on to complaining about the way rank-and-file teachers rejected a mediator’s recommendation in early May that included a 12-per-cent pay increase over four years and “a government commitment of more than $400 million in classroom improvements which would have started this fall.”
ATA’s Provincial Executive Council had voted to recommend that the union’s members accept that mediator’s report, but that recommendation was rejected by more than 62 per cent of the teachers who voted, suggesting a mood of impatience and militance similar to that seen in some other Canadian unions in the past few months.
At least Mr. Horner’s statement about the ATA strike vote was not as disdainful as his response to a similar 90-per-cent strike vote by direct employees of the provincial government represented by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees in late May.
But his statement yesterday – which unlike the one he published about AUPE was not posted on the government’s website – may serve to remind voters that public-sector contract negotiations in Alberta under the UCP really take place directly between the government, which gets to pull employer negotiating teams’ strings with secret bargaining mandates, and thus the government itself owns any bad outcomes like inconvenient strikes that may result.
A strike by civil servants or a strike by teachers all across the province would leave egg all over Premier Danielle Smith’s and her cabinet members’ faces, despite the ways some of the Maple MAGA extremists in the UCP might imagine they could turn such a situation to their advantage.
A province-wide strike by public and Catholic schoolteachers just as schools were about to reopen would be a particular embarrassment, it is said here, and a strong indicator that the UCP’s management skills are not all they are cracked up to be.
The UCP are doing a similar disservice to teachers in Alberta, just like it was when Ralph Klein was premier of Alberta. Treat them like utter garbage, without any care. Shovel more money into private schools, while starving the public education system of much needed funding. The students end up suffering.
Welp, good thing for Dani’s whinging fanbois that those repressive commie fed libs–headed by their arch-nemesis JT of bumper sticker fame–legislated $10-per-day childcare after being sandbagged by the dreaded NDP.
They’re gonna need it.
What happened in 2019? Private school graduate and university dropout Jason Kenney brought the UCP to power. Private school teachers are not represented by the ATA. Something to think about, lest any retired politicians attempt revisionist history.
“At yesterday’s afternoon news conference, Mr. Schilling several times emphasized that Alberta now has the lowest per-student education funding of any Canadian province. (Figures from Statistics Canada from the 2022-23 school year show average per-student funding in Alberta was $11,464, more than 16 per cent below the national average of $13,692. Alberta’s been at the bottom of the national scale since 2019.)”
Abs: Mr. Kenney was a noted crank when it came to education and pedagogy. He may have been a dropout, but who needs post-secondary education when your head has been filled with bad ideas at your Daddy’s side, Daddy being the principal of a religious school in darkest Saskatchewan. I suspect a lot of Mr. Kenney’s worst ideas had their beginning at the unfortunately named Atholl Murray College of Notre Dame in Wilcox. DJC
Deploy the Alberta Guard and the Marines.
Queen Danielle has a handle on this.
Donnie approves.
Just: Are the Alberta Marines paid by the department of the Navy? Just wondering. DJC
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
One has to wonder if the low per pupil funding, lack of an adequate number of teachers and other staff, including educational assistants, and so on is part of Danielle Smith’s plan to privatize education. After all, she is giving private, perhaps now called independent, schools increasing funding and funding for buildings and services that private/independent schools have not previously received. Charter schools are not open to all children either. Charter schools can select the students they would like. Public schools which, if I remember correctly, are no long permitted to use the title “public”, must take every “resident” student who applies. (Resident student means a student of eligible age who lives in the school jurisdiction.)
“One has to wonder if the low per pupil funding, lack of an adequate number of teachers and other staff, including educational assistants, and so on is part of Danielle Smith’s plan to privatize education”
If the UCP’s health care “plan” is any indication, I’d say it’s not really a question but a certainty.
At some point the chickens come home to roost and after years of austerity patience with the UCP is running thin. Unfortunately, now is also a time of low oil prices and the provincial budget is headed for a big and probably bigger deficit.
I don’t feel the public has totally caught on to how bad the UCP’s financial management is yet and Smith is skilled at shifting the blame to the Feds, municipalities or whomever. People still remember a few years of surpluses at the beginning of the Smith regime. However, I feel the next six to twelve months, this perception will change as people become more and more aware of the current financial state.
If you think Albertans are cranky now, wait a few months. Except at some point soon all the crankiness and anger will no longer be contained or shifted to others as Alberta continues to stagnate economically and our levels of government service slip further.
The levels of Government slip has already started and is well underway. Examples of this are: cutting dental benefits to those on AISH, the only province to claw back the Canada Disability Benefit, cutting back on optical services for seniors and those on AISH, cutting back on drug benefits for seniors, just to mention a few. So at the end of the day it’s one of those smoke and mirrors thing, give you an income tax break and cut back on benefits and charge more for everything else. This is one of those zero sum things that is supposed to make you feel better, but after a closer look makes you feel worse.
The teachers’ union would be wise to think carefully about their timing. A summertime strike might not be appealing to the membership for various reasons, and the union may feel they won’t get much publicity during the dog days of summer. However nothing will turn public opinion against the teachers’ cause faster than having to scramble to find babysitting for x amount of time in September. I’m sure the UCP are not only aware of this fact but are indeed counting on it.
UCP’s management skills? Heh! Made me reach for a serviette— I was just sipping my coffee when I read that! It’s a little early yet on the West Coast to switch to wry.
Scotty: Try the wry with a little tonic. DJC
I am not sure I agree with most of the comments. An embarrassment? This is what they have been trying to accomplish since the times of Ralph Klein. They finally have the cheapest teachers in Canada with the cheapest supported students.
UCP Maga is salivating. Time to privatize the horrendous system and push more religion into the classrooms.
This is an ACCOMPLISHMENT not an embarrassment.