Yesterday (Monday, April 4), an audible sound could be heard across the Pembina Hills School division. It was the sound of hundreds of parents cheering students returning to school after a more than a week-long spring break.
Not that Pembina Hills parents don’t love their children, but after 10 days of having students spend so much time at home can test the patience of the even the best parent.
However come this fall parents’ patience and plans might be put to the test once again due to a possible labour disruption with the province’s teachers.
On Aug. 31, the teachers’ contract expires and with it the potential of three years of labour peace. In the spring of 2013, the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) signed a four year contract which saw salaries frozen for three years with a two per cent pay raise in the final year. In the third year teachers also received a one time lump sum payment which was paid by the province. The first year of the contract was retroactive.
The provincial government mandated large portions of the agreement in what it called the Teachers Framework Agreement, after previous attempts to come up with a contract had failed.
The government is hoping a new two-pronged approach they have introduced will help the school boards reach collective agreements with their teachers.
At the main table the province and all the school boards will negotiate salary as well as other issues deemed to be provincial in nature with the ATA. A secondary table will allow local school boards to negotiate with ATA locals on matters that affect their board. In the past, all 61 boards negotiated 61 contracts with their ATA locals. A body known as the Teacher’s Employer Bargaining Association (TEBA) will represent the government and school boards at the main table with the ATA. The government also reserves the right to be at the table as part of the TEBA. The question is what will this round of contract negotiations hold? So far, both the government and the ATA are cautiously optimistic. ATA President Mark Ramsankar says he believes the TEBA apparatus to be fair. The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation (CTF) has called for a 10 per cent rollback in teachers’ wages, given the state of the economy and what is expected to be another large deficit budget. At this point the government hasn’t said whether it is planning to freeze, rollback or increase teachers’ pay and benefits. Nor should they. Anything they or the ATA say at this juncture would at best influence the negotiations and at worse inflame tensions. Something that is almost never productive in a negotiation. The process is in place. Now it is time for everyone to get work and negotiate a deal that will work for everyone involved, the province, the school boards, the teachers and most importantly, the students.
