Striking Alberta teachers and supporters wave signs outside Rogers Place in Edmonton on Thursday.Aaron Sousa/The Canadian Press
The union representing Alberta teachers has rejected a request by the provincial government to end their strike and enter mediation, leaving little sign that 700,000 public school students will be back in class any time soon.
It’s the latest development that Premier Danielle Smith says increases the likelihood of back-to-work legislation being introduced at the end of the month when the Alberta legislature resumes.
Alberta Teachers’ Association president Jason Schilling, at a Friday news conference, said the province requested in a Thursday letter that teachers enter mediation under the condition that schools reopen next week. The strike has been in place since Oct. 6.
Alberta teachers say they aren’t equipped to help students with complex needs
The Alberta government proposed that the two parties submit their pitches to a neutral third-party mediator who would produce recommendations by Nov. 13.
Those non-binding recommendations would then be subject to a vote by the teachers within the following week.
However, the province said the mediator’s recommendations would not be allowed to provide hard caps on classroom sizes or student-teacher ratios, a condition Mr. Schilling said is unacceptable.
Classroom sizes have been a key sticking point in months-long negotiations, as have teacher pay and resources to support students with complex learning needs.
“In the face of such inflexibility, teachers have no choice but to continue the strike action,” Mr. Schilling said.
He did not say whether the union would end the strike if the government relented and negotiated on student-teacher ratios or classroom-size caps.
The union, in its formal response to the province, wrote the stipulation “is engineered to produce a biased and predetermined outcome that entirely favours government’s objectives.
“For this reason, the proposal for enhanced mediation is bound to fail and is entirely unacceptable to teachers.”
At a Friday news conference, Premier Smith said the province hasn’t received a realistic or fair proposal from the ATA, and her government will likely table back-to-work legislation during the week of Oct. 27 – the same week the legislature resumes – if they fail to reach an agreement by then.
Ms. Smith said she’s hopeful courts wouldn’t rule against such an order.
“We think that three weeks is about the limit of what students can handle before we start seeing the irreparable harm,” she said.
“We live in hope but we’re planning for the other option.”
As for the prospects of reaching an agreement before then, Ms. Smith said the teachers’ union hasn’t made a proposal the government is willing to accept.
She said the ATA’s latest proposal would add $2-billion in spending to the government’s offer, which she said would cost about $2.6-billion. She also argued the proposed teacher ratios are arbitrary and there’s no evidence they would solve class-size issues.
“I think that the ATA, that leadership, needs to understand that there’s – what’s the phrase – more than one way to peel a potato,” Ms. Smith said.
The two parties remained at loggerheads throughout the week despite returning to the bargaining table on Tuesday.
Nearly 90 per cent of teachers rejected the government’s offer last month that included a 12 per cent raise over four years and a promise to hire 3,000 more teachers.
The strike began after months of stalled negotiations between the province and union.
The job action by the teachers is the largest in Alberta’s history, with 51,000 educators off the job at public, separate and francophone schools.
With the strike soon to enter a third week, the limited instructional time led the province on Friday to announce that the November diploma exams will be optional for students.
The standardized provincial exams, held four times every school year for language, math, science and social studies courses, comprise 30 per cent of students’ final mark, with the remaining 70 per cent coming from coursework.
School boards will still facilitate the tests for students who want to take them. The government said that those who don’t take the exams will have their final grade based on the mark teachers award them at the end of the year.
The province is providing families affected by the strike with financial assistance. Those with kids 12 or younger and who attend public, separate or francophone schools are eligible for $30 each day of the strike, per child.