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Key Concerns
Lack of stability for teachers
Education Minister Jeff Johnson has not provided any assurances that there will be stability in the work and professional lives of teachers. In many provinces, employment and membership provisions are incorporated into collective agreements, but many of these provisions remain in legislation, regulation or policy in Alberta. These include contracts of employment, how teachers are paid, minimum sick leave, professional membership, how teachers are hired, evaluated and fired, the role and duties of teachers and principals and requirements to become and remain a teacher. The minister’s offer includes no assurances that these conditions would not be unilaterally changed by government.
Salary
Johnson’s February 20, 2013, proposal retreats from his December 7, 2012, proposal in terms of salary. The minister’s previous offer included raises of 1 per cent and 3 per cent in the third and fourth years of the agreement. This offer converts some of those salary adjustments to lump sum payments, including a 1 per cent lump sum in the third year with no salary adjustment and 1 per cent in the fourth year with a 2 per cent increase applied to the grid.
Teacher workload
It’s important to note, at the outset, that nearly all the proposed provisions on teacher workload are not subject to arbitration. Therefore, school jurisdictions and the government can’t be bound to fulfill the commitments listed in this section, excepting obligations relating to the completion and implementation of a ministerial order on teacher workload. The workload study will not examine the workload of school or central office administrators and is restricted to classroom teachers. It is unclear if the internal reviews will examine tasks of school and central office administrators.
Lieu time for principals
This provision has been carefully worded to ensure that lieu time is generally not available. The normal personal leave provisions in collective agreements or policy are not to be duplicated. While this provision offers additional time, most principals will not obtain the benefit because it does not add to other provisions currently in place. In addition, other professional staff who give time to open or close school are not included.
Maintaining collective agreement provisions relating to hours of work/minutes of instruction
The minister proposes to amend all these provisions to annual calculations of hours of work/minutes of instruction even though teachers object to such changes, adding to the flexibility of school boards.
Ministerial order
Johnson proposes a ministerial order on teacher instructional time for teachers employed by school jurisdictions whose collective agreements do not provide for instructional time. The provisions include so many loopholes that the instructional time expectation of 907 hours of instruction can be bypassed by any school jurisdiction. In addition, it does not include schools of 150 students or outreach/virtual schools (over 400 schools). Where an exception is granted, it is for three years; there is no requirement to address instructional time issues over the period. While there is a mechanism for school boards to obtain an exception, there is no mechanism for a teacher to appeal their workload.
In Johnson’s December 7 offer, he committed to make his best effort to reduce school jurisdiction and Alberta Education initiated tasks over the four-year term. That commitment is not included in the February 20 offer.
The minister is not prepared to take any action to regulate assignable time for teachers employed by school jurisdictions whose collective agreements do not provide for assignable time.
Local bargaining
Minister Johnson’s proposal ensures that virtually no local bargaining can be undertaken. There can be no cost to any “enhancements” in 2012-14, and the cost of “enhancements” for 2014-16 is limited to 0.50 per cent of the 2012-13 base instruction grant (including items signed off to date in local bargaining). Non-cost items can be bargained by mutual agreement only and can’t be referred to arbitration. After five years of no bargaining, there are local issues that need to be worked out and this is not a framework that allows for effective local discussion.
