The Alberta Teachers’ Association

On February 8, 2012, Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk made statements to the media concerning the failure of discussions between the Government of Alberta, Alberta Teachers’ Association and Alberta School Boards Association to achieve a settlement in advance of the provincial budget. Lukaszuk’s statements are misleading in several respects and he has declined Association requests to issue a clarification of his comments.

Lukaszuk laid responsibility for the failure of the discussions solely at the feet of Alberta teachers. However, these are tripartite discussions and, as might be expected, three parties have been participating: school boards through the Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA), the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the Government of Alberta. For the minister to blame teachers for the breakdown of the talks while ignoring the consistent refusal of ASBA to discuss teacher workload issues and the fiscal constraints imposed by government is a misrepresentation of the history of these discussions. Furthermore, Lukaszuk is ignoring the significant concessions that Alberta teachers were willing to make to assist the government to achieve long-term stability and labour peace in the province’s education system.

Lukaszuk stated that “The face time that children have with their teachers is non-negotiable. So our position on behalf of the children is that we want to make sure that there is no diminished learning time.” He further stated that the he did not see an agreement being possible “until such time that ATA chooses not to negotiate teaching time.”

In fact, in these tripartite discussions, teachers have been talking about teacher workload, which is not the same as student access to instruction. Teachers are seeking to place reasonable limits on the workload that is being imposed upon them. Teachers’ goal is to ensure that they have the time to prepare to do their core work: to teach and to respond to increasingly complex needs of individual students.

In the discussions that have taken place since September, teacher representatives have offered numerous suggestions to limit workload in ways that would not cause additional cost. School boards would continue to have latitude to ­determine teacher instructional time in accordance with the standards set by the province in its Guide to Education and in accordance with collective agreements. Of course, if a board chooses to have teachers devote more time to instruction, it would have to reduce the other non-instructional duties it assigns. Boards have been able to manage such limits effectively without compromising student instruction; currently, restrictions on teacher time exist in jurisdictions serving 62 per cent of Alberta’s students.

Lukaszuk stated that “The numbers in the [provincial] budget will reflect our final offer to teachers for the next three years.” This statement invites confusion about the role of the provincial government with regard to teacher collective bargaining. Teachers bargain with their individual employer school boards. The province, as the sole funder of education, has considerable influence over and interest in the outcome of collective bargaining, which is why the ATA and school boards have been involved in discussions to determine if a framework could be agreed to within which such bargaining would occur. It is not the role of the province to make “final ­offers” in the budget, and to do so effectively undermines the prospects of a negotiated framework agreement.

Lukaszuk’s unfortunate ­comments have undermined ­his ability to act as an honest broker and lead the province to an outcome that meets the needs of all students. Teachers will continue to engage in whatever process the government chooses that might contribute to stability and improve the conditions of teaching and learning.

In the absence of a provincial framework agreement, teachers and their employing school boards will engage in collective bargaining to settle agreements for a period of time beginning on September 1, 2012. Without a tripartite agreement, all issues will be on the table for negotiation, including issues relating to teacher workload, teacher assignable time, teacher instructional time, salaries, benefits and other provisions. The Association is willing to continue to work with the minister to achieve a tripartite agreement.