Premier Ed Stelmach’s comments earlier this week, which laid the blame for teachers’ layoffs squarely on the shoulders of the teachers themselves, have led to confusion and anger and could make future contract negotiations more difficult.
“For [Stelmach] to say it’s all the teachers’ fault is ludicrous. By saying that, Mr. Stelmach puts a target on the backs of teachers when we thought we were building a good relationship for negotiations made in good faith,” said Sean Brown, a teacher at Bertha Kennedy School and the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s (ATA) local 23 representative for the Greater St. Albert Catholic school board.
Earlier in the week Stelmach referred to salary negotiations with the ATA, saying the union needs to take the province’s economic struggles and a $4.8-billion deficit into consideration when demands are made for pay increases.
The premier was reacting to a rally held in front of the legislature Sunday. Hundreds of people were there demanding increases in school funding.
The government announced $550 million for schools across the province last week, but a large portion of that increase is expected to go to pay the teachers’ salary increases next fall.
Alberta teachers are in the final year of a five-year contract. The premier’s suggestion was that the teachers agree to forgo this fall’s 4.4-per cent pay increase, explained Cam Hantiuk, communications director for Stelmach’s office.
“We were asking that as part of the negotiations, the ATA agree to part of the agreement or to reduce part of the increase,” he said, adding, “There was never any question that the province would not honour its agreement. We wanted to see if we could push out the agreement or push out the raises for a couple of years until the economy improved.”
Arbitration discussions that began almost a year ago between the province, the ATA and the Alberta School Boards Association ceased in January because the government had to finalize its own budget, Hantiuk said.
But Alberta School Board President Jacquie Hansen, who took part in those arbitration discussions, said, “A deal is a deal. It’s unfortunate that the premier is pointing fingers at the ATA because the government signed a deal in 2007 and the teachers are in the middle of a contract now.”
The ATA is projecting that 1,000 teachers across the province could lose their jobs.
“As school boards are now developing their budgets for 2012, the reality is that because of government grants to educational programs such as Alberta Initiatives and Enhanced English language courses, that increase of 4.5 per cent all washes out and many school boards will experience a net budget loss,” said Hansen, adding that teachers’ positions will be lost and many class sizes will be larger.
“The bottom line is that your kids will be in larger classes and that will have an impact, especially if they need extra help,” she said.
St. Albert Protestant school board chair Joan Trettler stressed the province must be accountable to the contract agreed to with the ATA in 2007.
“This government negotiated a long-term, five-year agreement and the onus is on them to hold to it. To ask the teachers to go from a negotiated increase of almost five per cent to a zero per cent increase is not realistic,” she said.
