The Alberta Teachers’ Association

November 3, 2009

Dennis Theobald, Editor in Chief, ATA News

Almost a month after the Alberta Teachers’ Association advised Education Minister Dave Hancock that it was willing to go along with his proposal for a provincial arbitration process to settle teacher salary increases for the 2009/10 school year, the minister has indicated that the government is willing to proceed. Now the next challenge involves the scheduling of arbitration hearings.

In a letter dated October 29, Hancock agreed that the proposed provincial arbitration could go forward subject to four conditions:

• The ATA and the province would agree on the selection of an arbitrator.
• The ATA and the province would expedite the arbitration process.
• The ATA and the province would use their best efforts to secure compliance with the outcome of the arbitration at the individual board/bargaining unit level.
• The ATA would retain the right to pursue grievance ­arbitration with individual school boards in the event that the boards failed to implement the decision of the provincial arbitrator.

In preliminary discussions, provincial officials and the ­Association have identified a potential arbitrator acceptable to both parties. The challenge is to schedule dates acceptable to the arbitrator and to the lawyers retained by the government to represent its interests.

“Teachers are telling me that they want to see this salary issue resolved quickly and decisively,” said ATA President Carol ­Henderson. “We agreed last April to give the government time to study the issue and now we need to move forward.”

The Association is prepared to appear before the arbitrator this month in the hope that the hearing process can be wrapped up early in the new year and a decision handed down soon thereafter.

“We expect the government and its lawyers to take the minister’s commitment to expediting this arbitration process seriously,” said Henderson. “After all, every single teacher in the province will be directly affected by its outcome, as will the government’s budget plans.”

Henderson indicated that while the ATA would prefer that the provincial arbitration process proceed, the Association is prepared to revert to its original plan and pursue grievance arbitrations currently being held in abeyance if that approach would result in a more timely resolution.

Whether taking place at the provincial level or between the Association and individual school boards, the purpose of the arbitration process would be the same: to determine what ­salary increase teachers are ­entitled to receive in the 2009/10 school year. According to collective agreements in place between the Association and individual school boards, increases in teacher salaries for 2009/10 are supposed to align with the ­increase in ­Alberta ­Average Weekly Earnings (AAWE) over the 2008 ­calendar year. While figures released earlier in the year suggested that the increase in AAWE was in the neighbourhood of 4.82 per cent, when Statistics Canada released finalized data for 2008 reflecting improved methodology, the agency reported that AAWE had, in fact, increased to 5.99 per cent. 

The ATA has argued that, based on a plain-language reading of collective agreements, teachers are entitled to receive the 5.99 per cent increase reported by Statistics Canada, while the minister of education budgeted for and expects school boards to pay the lower increase. In response to ministerial pressure, school boards have applied a 4.82 per cent increase to salaries and allowances, forcing the ATA to initiate grievance arbitrations in each bargaining unit.

For updated information about this and other stories appearing in the ATA News, visit the Alberta Teachers’ Association website at www.teachers.ab.ca and browse through the features section or ­follow the ATA News link.


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