The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Will expiring clause affect workload?

Question: The instructional-time clause in my collective agreement expires June 30, 2012. What does that mean for my workload next year?

Answer: It depends. When the clause expires, your school board could require teachers to instruct students up to the maximum (as set out in the School Act), which is significantly higher, or your board could continue operating under the same conditions until bargaining concludes.

There are 19 collective agreements with clauses that limit the amount of time a school board can assign specific work to teachers, allowing more time during the school day for teachers to complete the work required to provide instruction to students. Five of these agreements include clauses that expire—Calgary Public and Rocky View on June 30, 2012; Edmonton Public and Red Deer Catholic at the end of August 2012; and Calgary Catholic on June 30, 2013. The ATA’s Teacher Welfare staff have approached the first four of these jurisdictions about their intentions.

As of May 3, the question has been answered favourably by Calgary Public and Edmonton Public: schools will continue to be staffed on the same basis next year. At present, we have not heard from Red Deer Catholic. Rocky View, however, indicated there are no limits applicable to instructional time—in other words, teachers are vulnerable to an increase.

The reason these clauses are expiring (sunsetting) goes back to the Education Services Settlement Act (ESSA) of 2002, when more than 22,000 teachers took labour action to gain better classroom conditions for teachers and their students, and to ensure that the profession could attract and retain teachers. The provincial government enacted the ESSA after teachers were ordered back to work and, at the same time, stripped instructional time clauses from agreements that were not concluded.

When bargaining resumed in 2003, some teachers were success­ful in reinstating instructional time on a permanent basis (for example, Northland, Centre Nord and Greater St. Albert), while Edmonton Public, Calgary Public and Calgary Separate districts were willing to reinstate the clause for the term of the agreement only. During subsequent rounds of bargaining, including the provincial agreement in 2007, these clauses’ expiry dates were extended. At the same time, 10 other bargaining units were successful in adding hours of work clauses to their collective agreements, most of them without expiry dates.

Today, more than 60 per cent of Alberta’s teachers have clauses limiting the amount of work that can be assigned. With workload concerns topping teachers’ ­surveys across Alberta, it’s expected that these clauses will be a ­priority during this current round of negotiations.