The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) announced late Friday afternoon that discussions between teachers, the Alberta School Boards Association and Alberta Education have been called off.
The three organizations have met numerous times over the past year to discuss a potential new funding framework that would see teachers forgo a 4.3 per cent salary increase in exchange for limiting the number of instructional hours.
In a meeting on Friday, Education Minister Dave Hancock advised the parties that it was not possible to come to an agreement at this time.
“We will not be able to reach an agreement under our tripartite process that we were engaged in,” Hancock said during a press conference.
“We are still obviously going to continue discussions on all sorts of topics in an amicable way with respect to the interest-based discussions that we were having but we will not be pursuing the tripartite agreement that we were pursuing with the purpose of extending the current five-year agreement,” he said.
Hancock said there were “a number of reasons” why discussions fell apart.
“One of the elements of the proposed agreement has to do with instructional time and classroom time for students and we just did not have enough time to fully satisfy my colleagues because they needed to satisfy their public that those were indeed the transformational elements that we believe they are in moving forward,” he said on Friday.
“Perhaps time was our enemy on this. This particular effort had to be done in time for us to embody it in the budget and we weren’t going to be able to do that.”
This means that the current agreement, which dates back to 2007, will remain in place until it expires on Aug. 31, 2012. At this point collective bargaining will resume.
Beginning Sept. 1, teachers will receive a salary increase, expected to be 4.3 per cent, based on the average earnings of Albertans in 2010.
“Through these discussions, teachers were seeking solutions that would maintain programs, support the transformation of Alberta’s education system and extend the professional responsibilities of their association in challenging economic and political times,” ATA president Carol Henderson said in a statement.
She said it will be the responsibility of school boards and the government to find the resources necessary to maintain the quality of teaching and learning conditions in schools.
“Albertans do not want to see class sizes increase, programs cut or teaching positions eliminated,” Henderson said.
She complimented the minister and his officials for the efforts made on behalf of public education.
“It is not for want of their efforts that this process has come to an end.”
