The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Midway mark reached as 31 of 62 agreements signed

The Alberta Teachers’ Association has reached the halfway mark in its efforts to achieve memorandums of agreement in all 62 bargaining units.

Since the last report (ATA News, November 5), bargaining committees in St. Albert Public School District No. 5565, Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Separate Regional Division No. 4, Grasslands Regional Division No. 6, Wild Rose School Division No. 66 and Northland School Division have reached agreements with their respective school boards.

Highlights of settlements

Agreements continue to provide teachers with increases in leaves and benefits and to address local matters. For example, teachers in Grasslands and Holy Spirit will receive a day of paid personal leave at no cost to the teacher, and teachers in Wild Rose will see an increase in their Health Spending Account (HSA) from $250 to $700 per year. In order to deal with administrator transfers, the Wild Rose bargaining committee reached an agreement to red circle administrator allowances for three years, thus protecting school-based administrators from loss of salary if they are transferred to smaller schools. Holy Spirit teachers will have access to 15 weeks of paid maternity leave, up from the current 13, while teachers in St. Albert Public will have premiums for life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment and extended disability benefits paid by the school board for up to a year of maternity/parental leave.

Also since the last report, 97 per cent of teachers attending a Bargaining Unit General Meeting in St. Paul voted to reject a memorandum of agreement. Though the memorandum used all the 0.5 per cent (D1 money) earmarked for collective agreement improvements in the Framework Agreement, the employer would have saved money by delaying the last year of the grid roll up, which brought the value of the agreement down to approximately 80 per cent of the D1 money. St. Paul teachers refused to disentitle nine teachers of their grid increments and gave their negotiating subcommittee a strong mandate to negotiate an agreement that brings St. Paul teachers’ leaves, heath spending accounts and employer contributions to benefit premiums in line with other teacher agreements across the province.

Teachers in St. Paul serve as an important reminder to all bargaining units and school boards that local negotiations are not a pro forma exercise. Teachers who were legislated three years of 0 per cent salary increases expect to receive real value for the local bargaining provisions of the framework—school boards should not be complacent about these negotiations. ❚