Teacher labour process ‘broken’

Education minister says structure of talks flawed

Alberta’s education minister says he continues to be concerned about labour negotiations between 62 individual school boards and their 35,000 teachers, and is calling the current bargaining structure “broken.”

His remarks come as at least one school board trustee openly worries about the power the provincial teachers union could wield in negotiations because, for the first time, every teacher collective agreement in Alberta expired simultaneously, last August.

Education Minister Jeff Johnson said in an interview he’s facing calls to “fix” the system, which he says gives the provincial teachers union, headquartered in Edmonton, the ultimate say over any deal a union local signs.

At the same time, he said there is no formal seat at the table during local negotiations for the province, which controls education funding to school boards.

“There certainly are some challenges with the current provincial bargaining structure,” Johnson said in a recent interview.

Of particular concern to Johnson and some school boards is that teacher contract negotiations are now at play in every district in Alberta, a situation one school board trustee compares to “playing with dynamite.”

But Johnson’s comments on the union role in local teacher talks are disputed by the Alberta Teachers’ Association.

The association has previously accused the minister of manufacturing a crisis.

While the provincial union does hold the bargaining certificates, spokesman Jonathan Teghtmeyer said the notion the ATA would go around nixing potential deals is “unfounded.”

The minister said he wouldn’t speculate on what changes might be made or when. But his remarks come during a difficult period for education in Alberta. Last week’s provincial budget left more than half of all school boards in Alberta with less money, even though some will see more students next year.

The minister had tried to forge a provincewide “tripartite” teacher labour deal on issues such as compensation and workload, but that hit the wall, first in December and then again at the end of February.

Now that all negotiations are back to local boards, there appears to be support for taking a closer look at teacher bargaining in Alberta.

In a March 3 letter to the minister, Alberta School Boards Association president Jacquie Hansen said her organization agrees the “bargaining structure is flawed” and wants a hand in changing it, if that’s what the province plans to do.

One major issue, according to a school board trustee, is that all districts are trying to come to agreements at the same time, creating a situation that’s like “playing with dynamite.”

“In my own personal opinion, it puts the ATA in a tremendous position of power,” said Martha Ratcliffe, chairwoman of Livingstone Range School Division, a rural school district in southwest Alberta that stretches from Nanton to Waterton. “Just think about it. They’re in a position where they could say no to any deal that’s negotiated for 62 boards.”

But Teghtmeyer said there have only been three cases “in decades” where the provincial union stepped in to prevent a local deal.

Two involved legal issues in the contract that could violate the law, he said. In the third case, the union local voted in favour of a contract and the ATA signed.

He also argued it’s Johnson who has been inserting himself into local negotiations. The minister has warned school boards the most they can offer teachers is three years of salary grid freezes, followed by a two per cent increase.

He’s also directed school boards to send him any proposed collective agreements for his review at least 10 days before they are ratified.

The teachers union has accused the minister of not giving local negotiations time to bear fruit.

“The minister has talked about strikes, talked about labour disruptions publicly,” Teghtmeyer said. “He’s commented about the need to … ‘protect the classroom.’ This sort of language is not stuff we’re putting out there.”

“We are a long way away from any sort of disruption to schools and, at this point, we just need local bargaining to commence and we need to just give local bargaining a shot.”