Quote:
Originally Posted by BagoPucks
Ok I see the timing of my post might not be great given what the other side just did. I guess I should have posted that 3 weeks ago. Oh well, what is negotiating in good faith? Basically give the teachers what they need to do their jobs or they will shut the whole system down? Sounds more and more like both sides don't want a deal. We all know what the UCP is but I expected more from the educated folks.
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We (the teachers) have repeatedly said we need something to help us with class size and complexity. Generally I wasn’t even looking for a cap to recommended conditions by the Alberta’s Commission of Learning in 2003. I would’ve been okay with PLANS towards classroom size caps. Here’s the facts:
- 12% wage increase over 4 years and 3000 new teachers
- hiring more teachers is not a CBA item, there’s already a funding formula to address enrollment growth. And with over 1500 public schools in Alberta and over 15,000 increase in projected enrollment per year, 3000 teachers won’t even meet enrollment growth
- so teachers rejected the deal. We asked for something concrete the address class size and complexity
- the government offered literally the exact same deal plus a COVID shot just before the strike. So teachers strike
- Danielle said we cannot put class size caps because there aren’t enough schools. So the union offered a phased plan on classroom size caps in 4 years time to give the government time to develop the appropriate infrastructure. Even with this offer, Alberta would STILL be the lowest funded in all of Canada. This is called good faith bargaining. The government rejects, calling it “asking for the moon” but doesn’t come back to the table with a counteroffer.
- the government offered “enhanced mediation” under the stipulation that we return to work on Sept 20. The catch was that the mediator would be barred from talking about classroom size and complexity, so the union rejected. This is called bad faith bargaining.
- Danielle Smith was quoted saying that there should be an EA attached to “moderately complex” classrooms of 3-4 English as Additional Language Learners. By that metric, every public classroom would have 1-6 EA’s. This shows that she’s so completely out of touch with the realities of teaching and have not even listened to what it’s like teaching in a public classroom.
So in summary, as many other have alluded, the government has literally not budged on its original position, and waited a month while depriving teachers of their salary all the while intended to use the notwithstanding clause to force us back to work. This is not a two sides issue, it is purely the government acting in BAD FAITH.
I lost about 8 months worth of savings only to get my constitutional right stripped. It was completely unnecessary if they were just going ram this deal through anyway.