The Alberta Teachers’ Association

ATA President Carol Henderson and Provincial Executive Council annouce rejection of the minister's offer, February 26, 2013

Teachers say no to minister; yes to local bargaining

ATA rejects education minister’s offer; ASBA wants to discuss it locally; minister responds by questioning ATA leadership, and then dictates terms

Teachers say no to minister, yes to local collective bargaining
February 26, 2013, Alberta Teachers’ Association

Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) President Carol ­Henderson announced February 26 that the ATA’s Provincial Executive Council, comprising teacher representatives from across Alberta, voted unanimously to reject an offer made February 20 by Minister of Education Jeff Johnson to settle teacher collective agreements for four years.

“The minister’s offer is unacceptable,” said Henderson. “There are no provisions for placing reasonable limits on the amount of time that teachers can be assigned to work by their employer boards, and what provisions there are for limiting the amount of time teachers are in the classroom are full of loopholes. In financial terms, it is actually worse for teachers than what he proposed in December. ­Finally, there still remains the need to guarantee stability for teachers just as it guarantees stability for school boards and the province.”

Henderson noted: “Teachers have to prepare for larger, more complex classes and need time to improve their teaching and student learning. Without dealing effectively with issues of assignable and instructional time, the minister’s offer would simply not receive approval from teachers working in each and every school board, a necessary condition for it to be implemented.”

A letter containing what teachers viewed as a thinly veiled threat to implement salary rollbacks and reductions in teaching staff, in the event that the minister does not get a deal on his terms, accompanied the offer. In response, Henderson observed, “Teachers do not respond well to ultimatums.”

She emphasized that the ­Association has been working for months to reach an agreement with government. On November 30, the Association went so far as to propose a solution that would have responded to government’s fiscal issues by freezing salary grids for two years and providing for increases of 1 per cent in year 3 and 3 per cent in year 4. “Our proposal offered flexible and practical solutions to teachers’ workload issues, and guaranteed stability for students, parents, teachers and the province,” said Henderson. ­Johnson rejected this offer.

So where to now? Henderson pointed out that teacher bargaining units are still actively engaged in bargaining with school boards across the province. “School boards exist for a reason, and local teachers are working with them to negotiate collective agreements as has been the norm,” she said. “However, it is true that the minister of education’s comments about bargaining and his stated intention to review potential settlements have slowed down the process.”

Henderson says that the solution is to let local collective bargaining work. “We’ve said no to the minister’s offer, but yes to collective bargaining, and yes to fair solutions with locally elected school boards.”

The Alberta School Boards’ Association also responded to the minister’s offer on February 26.

“We are recommending the minister’s proposal to school boards as a starting point for local discussions,” said ASBA President Jacquie Hansen. “School boards will be the final decision makers; we trust in the wisdom of school boards.”

The ASBA board of directors passed a carefully worded motion full of enough qualifiers to make it sound like they were actually accepting the offer. The motion read that ASBA is “recommending the minister’s proposal to school boards as a starting point for local discussion about the implications of the proposal.”

Later in the day on February 26, Minister Johnson issued a media release expressing disappointment with the Association’s rejection.

“Our proposal would have meant labour stability and cost certainty during these tough economic times while ensuring we continue to move forward with Inspiring Education initiatives that will improve our already world-leading education system,” said Johnson.

Johnson’s release pointed to the offers proposed study of workload issues as a cornerstone of the offer and suggested the ATA’s rejection of this proposal was upsetting and an indication that “the ATA leadership didn’t share their members’ concerns.”

Late on March 1, Johnson sent an e-mail to school board trustees advising them that “provincial negotiations are over.” In an unprecedented move, he also told trustees what features needed to be included in local collective agreements. He said that “any negotiated deals must include wage freezes for three years and no more than a 2 per cent increase in the fourth year.”

The minister also said publicly that he believes the local bargaining model in Alberta is broken. The minister questions the role of the provincial Association in approving local collective agreements, which is a specious allegation given his direct intrusion of mandating terms of settlement to boards.

His e-mail to boards said: “Our teachers are already the highest paid amongst the provinces. While we are proud that our teachers are well compensated and we all benefit from the competitive advantage that gives us, we can’t afford to let the gap between them and their counterparts across the country grow.”

In response to the minister’s e-mail, ATA President Henderson expressed concerns about the minister’s interference. “Local bargaining just needs a bit more time,” said Henderson. “Between tripartite discussions in the fall and the minister’s interference since then, our teachers and boards have not had enough time to discuss their local issues fully and come to agreement.”

“The minister seems to be manufacturing a crisis,” added Henderson. “Talk about strikes and the need to ‘protect the classroom’ are coming from his office, not ours, and it is quite premature right now.”

The Association website (www.teachers.ab.ca) contains a full set of documents outlining the offer and events following its rejection, including the following:

• Minister’s letter to presidents Henderson and Hansen.
• Minister’s offer to ATA and ASBA.
• Text of President Henderson’s speech, news conference, February 26.
• Video from news conference, February 26.
• Minister’s e-mail to trustees, March 1.
• Information release on local bargaining process.