The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Dennis Theobald

The prospect that somewhere some teacher may be receiving a salary increase has the capacity to drive otherwise sensible people to distraction.

Consider, for example, the emerging narrative concerning the teacher ­salary increases originating from the five-year agreement in place between the Alberta government and the Alberta Teachers’ Association. Paula ­Simons, a columnist with the Edmonton Journal and generally a friend of public education, writes that she is “hard pressed … to summon up too ­terribly much sympathy for Alberta teachers, who’ll be getting what amounts to a nine-­per-cent wage increase over two years at a time when many Albertans are suffering from the downturn” (Edmonton Journal, May 27, 2010, www.edmontonjournal.com).

Simons links teacher salary increases, and the failure of the government to provide adequate funding to cover increases, to the potential loss of probationary and temporary teachers in Edmonton Public and other school jurisdictions. Given that teachers are unwilling to forgo the salary increases owed them, ­positions will be cut, “And once again,” she says, “it’s students who will suffer.”

While Alberta teachers will probably manage to make do even in the ­absence of Simons’s sympathy, it is unfortunate that her analysis is so blinkered, so naive and frankly, typical. Let’s start with that outrageous pay increase.

Yes, teacher salary increases appear to be out of line with the province’s immediate economic realities, but that is simply because teachers are only now receiving increases similar to those received previously by other Albertans, as reflected in annual changes to Average Alberta Weekly Earnings (AAWE). It is as if teachers are riding in the caboose of a long train that has just crested a mountain. Those sitting at the front of the train shouldn’t be surprised or outraged that those at the rear might still be moving upward even as those at the front are descending. Give it a bit of time and we will all end up in the same place.

Simons also writes that “the Stelmach government signed the deal, for good or for ill, without appreciating the long-term consequences of tying itself to an outside statistical formula.” This, she claims, is evidence of the government’s “poor judgment.” Nonsense! The government was not snookered by teachers: the five-year agreement it signed was, and is, entirely reasonable, and the risk the agreement entailed was borne equally by both sides. When the agreement was signed in November 2007, no one foresaw the financial crisis, worldwide recession and precipitous decline in energy prices that have ravaged the province’s revenues—if anyone had, they would now be lying on a tropical beach sipping mai tais and enjoying the hundreds of thousands of dollars they made shorting energy and stock futures, not penning columns for the Edmonton Journal or, for that matter, editorials for the ATA News.

Is the solution, as Simons suggests, to have teachers give up their pay hikes to protect jobs? We tried that once and ended up losing thousands of teaching ­positions even as the province experienced a sustained boom. Forgive us if we have learned from the past and are reluctant to repeat it. If she believes that overpaid teachers should help fund the public education system from their salaries, Simons should advocate for a progressive income tax or even for the continued use of AAWE as a basis for determining teacher salaries. Either or both of these would ensure that teachers, along with other Albertans, ­contributed on an equitable basis to funding core public services, including education.

But Simons does get a couple of things right. The failure of the provincial government to immediately and fully fund the cost of the agreement it signed has forced school boards into a difficult situation. Some are unwilling or unable to go into the red to save teaching positions and protect classroom conditions, and this will hurt students.

The title of Simons’s article is “Teachers–gov’t labour standoff has ­familiar ring—and once again, it’s students who will suffer.” In the interests of ­accuracy, she could have placed responsibility where it really belongs by writing “Flat tax has familiar ring” or “Massive subsidy for carbon sequestration has familiar ring” or “Government decision to forgo $180 million in liquor taxes has familiar ring.” Sadly, her conclusion would have stayed the same: it’s students who will suffer.

I welcome your comments—contact me at dennis.theobald@ata.ab.ca.