With the strike by Alberta’s 51,000 teachers into its fourth week, the province’s UCP government claims it has already caused “irreparable harm” to students.
That’s why Premier Danielle Smith’s government tabled back-to-work legislation on Monday evening, forcing teachers to return to the classroom this coming Wednesday.
The province and the Alberta Teachers’ Association have been deadlocked in a dispute over wages and classroom conditions, with the province’s latest offer including a 12 per cent wage hike over four years and a promise to hire 3,000 more teachers.
Under the bill that will go through readings on Monday night, the ATA and its members would face hefty fines if they don’t comply: up to $500 a day for individuals and $500,000 a day for the union.
It would also impose a collective bargaining agreement previously put forward by the union and the province, which rank-and-file teachers overwhelmingly rejected in a vote.
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Despite the promise to hire more teachers and education assistants and address classroom complexity, education experts agree the labour dispute has already taken a heavy toll on students.
David Johnson, a professor who studies education policy at the C.D. Howe Institute, says while students may benefit in the future from having smaller class sizes, the more immediate impact is less certain.
“I think we’re much more confident that the student’s experiencing the strikes are losing than we are if a class size moves from 25 to 23 that those students are a whole lot better off in the future,” says Johnson.
That experience appears to be borne out by what happened in Ontario, where a series of elementary teachers’ strikes or lockouts between 1998 and 2003 lasted between one and 15 days.
“We looked quite carefully at strikes in Ontario, where we’d had a lot of strikes,” said Johnson. “We were able to both show in different ways that the elementary school outcomes as measured by the reading and literacy tests (that) students who experienced strikes did worse than students who did not experience strikes.”
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Parents, teachers protest as Alberta government poised to order educators back to work
While the back-to-work legislation aims to force teachers to return to the class this week, it will most certainly not mark the end of the dispute.
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The move puts Smith’s government on a potential collision course with more than 350,000 workers in other provincial unions, which promised an “unprecedented response” if the government invoked the clause to override teachers’ constitutional rights to assemble.
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Jason Schilling, head of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, is expected to comment later Monday.
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But amongst their options could be some sort of work to rule, which would affect things like sports and other extracurricular activities, or even refusing to comply with the back to work order.
“If the teachers decide to comply with that legislation they could be back in classrooms as early as Wednesday or Thursday,” says Jason Foster, a labour relations professor at Athabasca University.
“If they choose not to comply and stay out on strike, then we just have giant question marks. How long do they do that, how long do they hold out, how does this other ancillary labour movement mobilization impact the dynamics and so then we’re just in unchartered territory,” added Foster.
The back-to-work legislation could also be challenged in court as unconstitutional — a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
During her weekend radio show, Premier Danielle Smith didn’t rule out using the notwithstanding clause in the constitution to override any court challenge.
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If that happens, the Alberta Federation of Labour is threatening much broader labour action.
The AFL says it has gathered together 30 different unions, representing about 350,000 employees province with that are willing to mobilize against the government’s use of the notwithstanding clause.
“The use of the notwithstanding clause in the context of collective bargaining would be unprecedented,” says AFL President Gil McGowan.
“Because it’s unprecedented and frankly an unprecedented threat to workers’ rights and democracy, we would have no choice but to mobilize an unprecedented response,” added McGowan.
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Alberta unions warn of ‘unprecedented response’ if province invokes notwithstanding clause
It’s a threat that drew a warning from Alberta Minister of Finance Nate Horner.
“No other unions are in a legal position to strike currently. So if they’re proposing severe illegal wildcat strike action there’s severe consequences at the labour relations board for this,” said Horner.
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At a rally in Calgary on Monday morning, many teachers remained defiant.
“If the government is willingly able to go forward with taking away our right to strike, that really does set the precedent for other labour unions that maybe our democratic rights aren’t really rights all along,” said teacher James Smith.”
The strike by Alberta’s teachers began on Oct. 6.
With files from Lisa Johnson and Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press
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