In important labour relations news, significant portions of the province of Alberta sighed with relief yesterday upon learning that an important contract has finally been signed, ending a period of uncertainty and fear.
That’s right, Connor McDavid will remain with the Edmonton Oilers for at least another two years at the modest cost of $12.5 million per annum, plus benefits. The team captain will receive a zero-per-cent pay increase, it would appear.
In other bargaining news, however, the largest teachers’ strike in Alberta history got underway yesterday morning as expected by everyone. The Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) – the 51,000 striking public, Catholic and francophone teachers’ union – was immediately served with a lockout notice by the Teachers Employer Bargaining Association. The lockout will formally begin on Thursday.
The ATA reacted calmly. “The Alberta Teachers Association and government officials remain in talks,” a chill ATA President Jason Schilling said in a short statement in response to the lockout notice. He downgraded that slightly at a news conference yesterday morning to “exploratory talks.”
It’s important to remember that while on paper employer-side negotiations are being conducted by TEBA, the reality thanks to the UCP’s secret bargaining mandates legislation is that the ATA is negotiating directly with the government.
“This is a routine process employers use in response to unions going on strike, which the ATA did on October 6,” TEBA Chair Scott McCormack said of the lockout in a statement published on the official Alberta Government website yesterday. McCormack is also an assistant deputy minister in the Provincial Bargaining and Compensation Office of the Alberta Ministry of Finance.
McCormack’s comment is true as far as it goes, although I would suggest that in a huge public sector strike impacting 750,000 students and carrying significant political risks for the government, the optics are bad enough this wasn’t the smartest course available to the government – which, remember, is calling the shots.
“We saw earlier this year with rotating strikes by educational assistants the tremendous uncertainty it created for school divisions, parents and students who were given very short notice about where strike activity would be taking place,” McCormack’s statement said.
Well, this is true too, but I am sure most parents and most students in the higher grades would prefer to deal with a bit of that kind of uncertainty in return for only losing a few days of school.
So when McCormack went on to say “the lockout will provide predictability and stability for students,” most of us realize this is a genuinely ridiculous thing to say under the circumstances.
The statement continues in the same vein. I’m sure the government’s capable communications staff were rolling their eyes when they were instructed to write this stuff.
But Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) isn’t inclined to take responsibility for anything, so this kind of excuse making – whoever is assigned the role of mouthpiece – is entirely on brand.
As former UCP cabinet minister Peter Guthrie, who is now trying to resuscitate the Progressive Conservative Party, said in a statement on social media, “from the outset, the UCP treated negotiations as a political battle rather than a good-faith process.”
“Let’s be clear,” Guthrie said, “it is the UCP, not teachers, using children as political pawns. Instead of investing in classrooms and improving outcomes, they spend public dollars on division and distraction. Their goal to ‘break the teachers’ is about control, not resolution.”
At this point both sides are obviously far apart and the rest of us will just have to wait and see how they can find their way to an agreement that the province’s teachers are prepared to live with.
The government, which seems to want to ensure that teachers feel some pain, says it has no plans to recall the Legislature, which is scheduled to return on October 23. But it’s likely that government MLAs in particular will be hearing strong messages from constituents well before then.
In the meantime, Go Oilers! You’ve two years to bring home the cup before McDavid, 28, informs you that he’s going to have to start thinking about making some real money before he’s too old.
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