Teachers ratify bargaining agreement
Vote 85% in favour of four-year deal
Despite the deal not addressing two key issues — classroom size and composition — that led to job action in March, Saskatchewan teachers voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new collective bargaining agreement.
In a vote held May 19-21, Saskatchewan teachers voted 85 per cent in support of a new four-year agreement, the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation announced on Thursday.
The deal includes a zero-percent wage increase for 2019 followed by three consecutive twoper-cent raises.
Federation president Patrick Maze said classroom complexity will be addressed “with sector partners in a new provincial class size and composition committee.”
Classroom size and composition was a key issue in the months-long bargaining process that broke down earlier this year.
While both sides have long agreed teachers are lacking resources to manage classrooms with increasingly high student needs, they were divided about how to deal with it.
The STF wanted a mechanism for ensuring appropriate resources in its collective agreement, while the government favoured an outside process.
“Acceptance of this agreement does not signal that teachers’ concerns have been addressed,” Maze said in a prepared statement.
“However, teachers recognize the world has changed dramatically and settling the contract enables them to focus their energy on supporting their students by continuing to adapt their teaching strategies and provide quality emergency remote learning for the rest of this school year.”
The world has changed dramatically and settling the contract enables them to focus their energy on ... students.
Classes abruptly ended in March as a result of the COVID -19 pandemic, and the province recently announced that students and teachers would not return to schools in the 2019-20 year.
Plans for the 2020-21 school year remain up in the air.
Shortly before in-school classes ended, and following a vote in favour of job action after negotiations broke down, the province’s teachers stopped providing any voluntary and extracurricular services.
Maze said the federation “is cautiously optimistic a collaborative sector approach to COVID-19 response can be replicated to address class complexity.”
Education Minister Gordon Wyant, in a statement issued last month after the agreement was tentatively reached, said the deal “balances our respect and appreciation for teachers with the fiscal realities of the province.”
The deal for the approximately 13,500 teachers will run from Sept. 1, 2019 to August 31, 2023.
“We remain deeply committed to ensuring students have equitable access to the supports and resources they need,” Maze said.
“We will continue to propose and advocate for solutions through the new committee.
“If government fails to implement meaningful change, we will explore all avenues — including future rounds of bargaining — to ensure students’ needs are met.”