In important labour relations news, significant portions of the province of Alberta sighed with relief yesterday upon learning that an important contract has finally been signed, ending a period of uncertainty and fear.
That’s right, Connor McDavid will remain with the Edmonton Oilers for at least another two years at the modest cost of $12.5 million per annum, plus benefits. The team captain will receive a zero-per-cent pay increase, it would appear.
In other bargaining news, however, the largest teachers’ strike in Alberta history got underway yesterday morning as expected by everyone. The Alberta Teachers Association – the 51,000 striking public, Catholic and francophone teachers’ union – was immediately served with a lockout notice by the Teachers Employer Bargaining Association. The lockout will formally begin on Thursday.
The ATA reacted calmly. “The Alberta Teachers Association and government officials remain in talks,” a chill ATA President Jason Schilling said in a short statement in response to the lockout notice. He downgraded that slightly at a news conference yesterday morning to “exploratory talks.”
It’s important to remember that while on paper employer-side negotiations are being conducted by TEBA, the reality thanks to the UCP’s secret bargaining mandates legislation is that the ATA is negotiating directly with the government.
“This is a routine process employers use in response to unions going on strike, which the ATA did on October 6,” TEBA Chair Scott McCormack said of the lockout in a statement published on the official Alberta Government website yesterday. Mr. McCormack is also an assistant deputy minister in the Provincial Bargaining and Compensation Office of the Alberta Ministry of Finance.
Mr. McCormack’s comment is true as far as it goes, although I would suggest that in a huge public sector strike impacting 750,000 students and carrying significant political risks for the government, the optics are bad enough this wasn’t the smartest course available to the government – which, remember, is calling the shots.
“We saw earlier this year with rotating strikes by educational assistants the tremendous uncertainty it created for school divisions, parents and students who were given very short notice about where strike activity would be taking place,” Mr. McCormack’s statement said.
Well, this is true too, but I am sure most parents and most students in the higher grades would prefer to deal with a bit of that kind of uncertainty in return for only losing a few days of school.
So when Mr. McCormack went on to say “the lockout will provide predictability and stability for students,” most of us realize this is a genuinely ridiculous thing to say under the circumstances.
The statement continues in the same vein. I’m sure the government’s capable communications staff were rolling their eyes when they were instructed to write this stuff.
But Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party isn’t inclined to take responsibility for anything, so this kind of excuse making – whoever is assigned the role of mouthpiece – is entirely on brand.
As former UCP cabinet minister Peter Guthrie, who is now trying to resuscitate the Progressive Conservative Party, said in a statement on social media yesterday, “from the outset, the UCP treated negotiations as a political battle rather than a good-faith process.”
“Let’s be clear,” Mr. Guthrie said, “it is the UCP, not teachers, using children as political pawns. Instead of investing in classrooms and improving outcomes, they spend public dollars on division and distraction. Their goal to ‘break the teachers’ is about control, not resolution.”
At this point both sides are obviously far apart and the rest of us will just have to wait and see how they can find their way to an agreement that the province’s teachers are prepared to live with.
The government, which seems to want to ensure that teachers feel some pain, says it has no plans to recall the Legislature, which is scheduled to return on Oct. 23. But it’s likely that government MLAs in particular will be hearing strong messages from constituents well before then.
In the meantime, Go Oilers! You’ve two years to bring home the cup before Mr. McDavid, 28, informs you that he’s going to have to start thinking about making some real money before he’s too old.
It seems McDavid took one for the team in his negotiations. Well I suppose he can afford to, with over $12 million a year still he will not be struggling financially. Unfortunately not all labour negotiations are as amicable, although his were drawn out.
I suspect the last thing the UCP wants is the opposition asking pesky questions about the teachers situation in the legislature daily. Although it might help if their feet were held to the fire more. However pressure from Albertans may be sufficient to make up for this.
I don’t understand the logic for locking the teachers out either. Perhaps there is some legal advantage to this, but it seems like a poor idea from a communications perspective. Maybe Smith who is an authoritarian want to be is frustrated that she can’t seem to control teachers like she tries to control everything else under the provincial governments power. Perhaps it was better years ago when Smith often claimed to be a libertarian, although I doubt if that was really true and she was still attracted to kooky ideas.
An Alberta teacher with 10 years on the job makes $94 000 per year. Athletes have short careers, and with only two years at the rate to which McDavid has altruistically agreed to be paid by the Oilers, he will barely make the equivalent of 266 years of teaching. Dillon Dubé is up for grabs in a little over a week, so maybe Edmonton can shore up their pivot depth on the cheap. Yay for bread and circuses!
Smith scabbed the Calgary Herald strike in 1999. Need I say more?
I believe that there is a transposition of digits in the number of students; 710,000 not 170,000
John: You are correct. I have corrected the number and gone with the higher estimate of the ones I have seen, 750,000. DJC
Like all proclaimed Christo-fascists, they only actually like children if they’re quiet, obedient, don’t cost much to raise, slavish workers , non-complaining consumers and dedicated to the cult.
The rest, not so much.
They really didn’t get the point of Oliver Twist or Grapes of Wrath or anything else pro-working class because I’m pretty sure they don’t read anything that doesn’t come off the Amazon Best Seller List written by a semi-literate Fox News Host.
Educational failures in charge of education. What could possibly go wrong?
Peter Guthrie is correct about what the UCP is doing to public education in Canada. It’s deplorable.
“Mr. McCormack’s comment is true as far as it goes, although I would suggest that in a huge public sector strike impacting 170,000 students and carrying significant political risks for the government,”
I am not clear if this was referring to the previous strike by education assistants, or is the word students supposed to be public sector staff? At any rate it appears Dingy is not backing down, in fact adding fuel to the fire. Maybe the teachers should tell Smith, they will return to the bargaining table when she resigns? Of course that would be a wild stretch.
OA and others: Just a note. The correct number of students is usually stated as 700,000 to 750,000. 170,000 was a typo and has been corrected. Students refers to the number of students affected by the strike. DJC
Thanks for the clarification and correction.
It wasn’t a good look for the premier, on tour in Montreal, to pretend the date of the strike was “arbitrary”. She’s known this day was coming for months. Further, she received formal notice weeks in advance, as is custom in these situations. She certainly isn’t making any effort to resolve the strike and even less to stop stirring the pot. In fact, she’s busy stirring another pot during her campaign to break up Canada. Typical Dani, running away to create another distraction. She reminds me of my old boss, who used to say, “I feel so bad about this, I’m going to go smoke a Montecristo and have my shoes shined.”
Welcome back DJC, paragraph 7, “impacting 170,00 students” should be 710,00. As one who was not home schooled and religiously indoctrinated, I still maintain my ability to read and understand fact based reporting (although with the time difference to which you are still adjusting we can cut you some slack).
Being an Albertan but not Edmonton based, while the McDavid signing is somewhat critical to the short term success of the province, resolution of the province wide teachers’ strike is ultimately more important long term. McDavid may leave in two/three years, but the departure of a significant number of the 51,000 teachers to other provinces would be a far greater loss and have a far greater economic impact.
Thanks Middle Dave, on both counts. Of course I was striving for humorous juxtaposition with the McDavid mention. Good for him, though, taking less to give his teammates the chance at a Stanley Cup ring. As for the typo, I was thinking 700,000 and my fingers typed 170,000. Old age? Who knows? Anyway, it’s been fixed and I opted to go with the 750,000 figure that has been circulating widely along with 700,000, 710,000 and 730,000. DJC
@DJC save yourself the grief next time and just say 700K+ or between 700K-750K
Less writing 😀
Yesterday evening, while listening to CBC Radio, I was bemused to hear the voice of Peter Guthrie offering up a critic of the UCP’s handling of the Education file. I must say, for the presumed leader of a non-existent political party, he sure seems to draw an inordinate amount of media attention. Meanwhile, outside of a FB post from Sunday’s rally at the Legislature, I’ve seen nothing from our leader of the Official Opposition. Should we request a wellness check? I hope he’s OK.
If you’re referring to Naheed Nenshi, I can assure you he’s alive and well. The NDP’s Better Together travelling road show was in Grande Prairie, the last stop, just a couple weeks ago, on September 23rd. Mr Nenshi was accompanied by MLAs Janis Irwin, Lori Sigurdson, and Gurtej Singh Brar. Turnout was impressive, especially for a city stereotyped — IMHO for good reason — as rock-ribbed conservative.
The real reason why Nenshi and the NDP seem to constantly fly below the radar is that the radar is purposely not scanning for them: the Postmedia- dominated Alberta media is deliberately ignoring them.
As for social media, the algorithms create an echo chamber that doesn’t present contrary voices to users, so conservative-leaning voters don’t see coverage of progressive politicians or commentary from non-conservative voices.
Wishing on the Oilers’ hopes of winning the Stanley Cup is a lot like putting all your trust in a bag of magic beans. I suspect the joy of McDavid taking the hometown discount (though he’s from Ontario) has fogged plenty of already addle minded idiots out there. But don’t worry: I suspect that the Oilers will once again make it to the final round, only to be bounced by the more committed and savvy team. Watching the Oilers play is like watching bush-league Toronto Maple Leafs blow another chance to get even a little bit close to Lord Stanley’s holy grail. Hell, I suspect that the Leafs may reclaim the Cup before Edmonton does.
And most of Alberta commits Seppuku: those who are Oilers fans, and the Flames fans, who can’t live without trying to beat up the Oilers.
Well, well, well. Another day, another petition for a referendum, this time addressing the matter of public funding for private schools in Alberta.
Also, Dani’s jab at the “provincial premier”, or “parochial premier”, as she put it, hasn’t been ignored. David Eby is calling out the “Danielle Smith show”* and calling for equal tens of billions of federal money for projects for each of the other provinces and territories, in the name of that most Canadian value, fairness.
And what does Grey Cup have to do with any of this, other than being an arbitrary date? Princess wants Premium Club seats at the Princess Auto Stadium? (All I got was a hose that I had to pay for myself.) Canada has a “queen” and a “parochial princess” and a real king right now. Where’s Shakespeare when you need him?
*Not to be confused with the actual Danielle Smith show on Saturdays on a local radio station.
Fascist Smith has a lot of money for pipelines, but nothing for public services, unless their privatized. I’m sure her base of useful idiots will support anything she peddles, even if it is detrimental to the public good. Her base and Trump’s base have a lot in common: the lower working class, conditioned to hate the middle class, are filled with hate; while the morbidly rich, playing the role of puppeteer and financing the fascists, laugh at the sheer stupidity of the former while increasing their wealth and power. Marx was right to state that there are two opposing classes, yet he couldn’t foresee the power, concentration and influence of modern media. Fascism has taken over the USA and it’s being exported to Canada.
Smith has got to be some stupid for having the teachers locked out. That leaves about 700K kids without their usual place to be and most of those parents are not going to be able to afford child care. If the lock out goes on for some time its going to negatively impact students in the upper grades and could well affect when they graduate and delay their university entrance. Good old Danni. Doesn’t seem to care about how this turns out for the kids. If the lock out goes on too long, teachers may well leave and come to B.C. There are vacancies. B.C. has also just announced the schools will be used as day cares also, i.e. summer time and other breaks. They expect the care givers will be staff who are teacher aides.
When employers lock out workers its usually that they think it will cause the strikers to give up and come back to work. However in many situations where workers are locked out the public is inconvenienced greatly, it back fires on the employer. Its not like the workers decided to cease working, no it was the employer who decided the workers didn’t need to come to work. 700K children out and about is going to be interesting. Alberta is heading into winter weather. What could possibly go wrong. If a child dies Dani is going to wear it.
It could be this is simply a way to save money. Wouldn’t be the first time a lock out meant financial gain for the employer.
McCormick’s line regarding this will provide stability, etc. for students. Right. Does this guy even know how children’s brains work and what they need to feel safe? Most parents are not going to be able to find or afford day care which means leaving children at home, alone all day. What could go wrong there?
For many children, schools is the one safe place they have, with stability. Now its gone. Don’t know if Alberta has food programs in schools. In B.C. we do. So if a child is feed at school that may be one less meal they will have each day. Perhaps Dani and her incompetents would like to give up one meal a day.
In case Danni hasn’t gone to the grocery store lately or paid rent, I’d like her to know costs have gone up as has the cost of clothes, vehicles, etc. Teachers need the raises they are asking for. They need to be able to pay rent, mortgages, etc. Over the years, decades Alberta right wing governments have given a lot of breaks and gifts to big oil and not batted an eyelash. I do remember some thing about big oil just walking away from orphaned wells and low royalties……..
Oh well I’m sure trump is ever so proud of her, if he remembers her.
Please don’t give the premier of Alberta ideas. I’m pretty sure she would force school boards to lease out the now-vacant schools to homeschooling organizations, day care centres and then to private and charter schools after that, if only she could make the strike drag on. Sure, there are rules around this. There is no rule or law that can’t be changed. Even more fun for the UCP if it’s retroactive. They love that.
I don’t know how many Alberta teachers are nearing retirement or already eligible but it wouldn’t surprise me to see retirements spike upward after this. This will mean even more crowded classrooms, as teachers cannot instantly be replaced. Never mind. There’s probably a zero percent chance of the province seizing teachers’ retirement savings to build a pipeline to northern B.C., right? It’s not as if the minister of finance/president of the treasury board is at the helm of AIMCo while simultaneously threatening to bring a hammer down on Alberta teachers or anything.
https://teachers.ab.ca/news/ataatrf-statements-removal-aimco-board
“The term you may hear me use and the premier use as the test for a hammer like that from government, is if we deem there’s irreparable harm happening – whether that’s to the long-term educational prospects of Alberta’s children, whether that’s to the economy at large. That’s the test before you can consider proceeding with a hammer like that.”
https://www.ctvnews.ca/edmonton/alberta-primetime/article/finance-minister-says-government-will-consider-everything-if-teachers-strike-continues/
On the subject of the lockout, there’s a story in the CBC reporting that an Athabasca University professor of labour relations named Jason Foster is surprised they didn’t do this sooner.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/labour-expert-alberta-teachers-strike-9.6932938
Jerry: Everyone familiar with labour relations understands this is a fairly normal procedure, and why. As I argued, though, in this case the optics are bad and the government’s claim that the lockout ensures certainty for students is preposterous. DJC
Sunday Oct 5th
Happy Teachers Day
Making lives better!
“Teachers influence extends far beyond the classroom—they support students, strengthen families and enrich our communities. On October 5th we honour the educators who show up every day with care ,courage and creativity leaving a profoundly positive impact on our society.
( https://www.ctf-fce.ca)
So I’m guessing that Marlaina didn’t have that on her calendar because she was busy making travel plans to ‘La belle provance’ **, and cozying up with Quebec Premier– in what must be one of love days of Alberta’s seeming love/hate relationship with that province; which I must say I find rather amusing.
Am I wrong in assuming that she left ‘Jack’ in her corner because the Minister of education is m.i.a. , or has Nicki been dispatched to Oklahoma for his own “education” session on breaking teachers unions? ** Gullible(rs) Travels ??
This I like:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-teacher-petition-private-school-1.7653896
A better response to the education crisis in Alberta than anything Smith has come up with.
So ATA President Jason Schilling and his bargaining committee had a tentative deal with the Province , which the teachers rejected by an overwhelming majority. I say that puts Mr. Schilling in a somewhat awkward position.
It was reported that the teachers will maintain their benefits, but receive no strike pay. I’m just wondering does Mr. Schilling still receive his ATA salary?. But at least those teachers that have children in the school system under the age of 12 receive $150.00 a week per child from the Province. Only in Alberta !!!
There is no deal until the members ratify it. This is nothing new. Until then, any proposal is just a concept of a plan of a deal. There’s nothing awkward about it. It should not surprise anyone that offering essentially the same deal twice would lead to the same response twice.
You seem very concerned about the ATA members and their elected president. Isn’t that special.