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Discussions between the Government of Alberta, the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the Alberta School Boards Association about a potential long-term framework governing teacher collective agreements have ended.
In a meeting held January 28, 2011, the Honourable Dave Hancock, minister of education, advised the parties that it was not possible to come to an agreement. This means that the five-year framework agreement that was settled in 2007 will remain in place until it expires on August 31, 2012, at which point local collective bargaining will resume.
This also means that teachers will receive a salary increase, beginning September 1, 2011, which will be linked to the increase in the average earnings of Albertans that occurred over the 2010 calendar year. While the amount of that increase will not be finalized until Statistics Canada publishes its final figures for 2010 in the spring, preliminary data suggests the increase will be in the neighbourhood of 4.3 per cent.
The cost of the salary increase will have to be borne within a constrained education budget. It is not clear at this point what the implications of this will be for teacher staffing and programs.
While Alberta Education officials had made substantial progress toward defining a proposal for presentation to teachers and school boards, Hancock said, in an interview with the Canadian Press, that he had been unable to secure the necessary support for the proposal from his colleagues on the Treasury Board.
Given the announcement of Premier Ed Stelmach’s intention to resign and the widely reported divisions within the government caucus over the budget, it is hardly surprising that a potential proposal to set teacher salary increases through to September 2015 and to introduce limitations on teachers’ instructional and assignable time would be a hard sell. Hancock’s plans were further undermined by a concerted lobbying effort on the part of school boards that began even in the absence of a final proposal. Targeting MLAs, school councils and parents, the school boards’ communications efforts focused on the potential for reductions in student instructional time, although it was also clear that boards were not favourably disposed toward increasing teachers’ control over professional development or imposing limits on the demands boards could make on teachers’ time.
ATA President Carol Henderson expressed regret at the government’s failure to bring forward a proposal for teachers to consider. “Through these tripartite discussions, teachers were seeking solutions that would maintain programs, support the transformation of Alberta’s education system and extend the professional responsibilities of their Association in challenging economic and political times. While I don’t know whether teachers would have accepted the government’s proposal, I do know that it would have generated a lot of focused discussion about teaching and learning conditions, discussions we need to have.”
“Now it will be the responsibility of school boards and the government to find the resources necessary to maintain the quality of teaching and learning conditions in our schools,” said Henderson. “Albertans do not want to see class sizes increase, programs cut or teaching positions eliminated.”
Henderson concluded by complimenting the minister and his officials for their efforts on behalf of public education. “Mr. Hancock and department officials spent days exploring with the parties creative solutions that would address the needs of teachers, students and our public education system. It is not for want of their efforts that this process has come to an end.”
