Hundred of teachers in Medicine Hat are seen during a March for Education held Thursday as Premier Smith said her government plans to issue a back-to-work order when legislation reconvenes Monday.--HANDOUT PHOTO
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
Brendan Miller
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
Drawing a clear line in the sand, Premier Danielle Smith says her UCP government will introduce a back-to-work legislation on Monday to order educators back to work if the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the province can’t reach a deal in the next few days.
Smith said with the strike deep into its third week, the hardship facing students and families is intolerable, forcing her government to step in.
“We were dismayed that it came to this point, we think that the offer we put forward is fair,” Smith said Thursday. “We hope that there’ll be an opportunity to have a breakthrough, but barring that, we’ve got to get the kids back to class.”
To get kids back to class the government will be introducing Bill 2, known as the Back to School Act, published on the Alberta Legislature’s website.
Jason Schilling, ATA president, foreshadowed the UCP’s move, saying the union was aware the government was planning to end the strike through legislation and says the ATA remains prepared to meet the province at the negotiation table.
“These conditions are the direct consequence of a decade of underfunding, leaving Alberta as the province spending the least on public education,” said Schilling in a press release Wednesday. “We remain prepared to negotiate solutions that include a student-teacher ratio.”
The two sides are deadlocked over wages and classroom conditions.
The province has offered a 12 per-cent wage hike over four years and a promise to hire 3,000 more teachers to reduce overcrowded classrooms. It has refused to negotiate caps for class sizes.
Educators have rejected that offer, saying more teachers and more concrete steps are needed to address class sizes and other complexities such as students with special needs.
In Medicine Hat, public support continues to back striking teachers, who have been demonstrating in solidarity by the hundreds throughout multiple “Marches for Education,” to highlight demands while wearing red shirts and holding signs in front of Smith’s constituency office.
“The public support that we did receive was really quite heartwarming,” said Michael Jerred, president of ATA Local No. 1 in Medicine Hat. “The amount of honk ed horns, we really felt like we had the community support behind us, which I know every teacher that was on those walks really appreciated.”
Thursday marked the final “March for Education” rally held in Medicine Hat. Now all local teachers joining their 51,000 peers across the province will have to wait to find out if they will be forced back to the classroom Tuesday morning.
“We always knew it was going to be weird when we entered the political arena, I don’t feel like we dealt with reason and logic and fact, it’s all narratives and alternate realities,” Jerred said about recent video ads released by the province spreading “false narratives.”
“You have the minister of education saying things like ‘classroom sizes don’t matter,’ consistent messaging around there isn’t actually a problem here. So it’s quite strange to hear that coming from the government, especially when you have 50,000 teachers on strike.”
Jerred says teachers aren’t alone.
“We also have a lot of parents and students who are voicing their concerns, and I don’t know if any of that is falling on ears that are willing to listen.”
Looking back, Jerred says the province had no intentions to bargain with teachers as they would not budge from their original offer.
“They’re initial position is where they’re finished by legislation,” he said.
Following routine proceedings which include a prayer, Indigenous Land Acknowledgement and royal anthem, Bill 2 will be up for oral question period shortly after 1:50 p.m.
If legislation passes, teachers could be back in the classrooms as early as Tuesday morning. Another option the union has is to enforce a work-to-rule job action where teachers would only perform their necessary duties but not be able to coach school sports or participate in extracurricular activities.
Teachers could also defy the UCP’s back-to-work order and enter uncharted territories.
Experts have said provinces already have the right not to comply as Canada’s division of powers means Ottawa can’t force provinces to take up the cause on things that fall beyond federal jurisdiction.
If teachers are forced back to class, it’s likely contract negotiations would be handled through arbitration.
“But they will limit the scope of what arbitration may consider, and so they’ll take things like classroom complexity and classroom caps off the table to give the arbitrator a very narrow window of operating room,” predicts Jerred, meaning three weeks of strike efforts to improve classroom conditions and address other complexities would essentially be squandered.
