The head of Alberta’s teachers union says they will abide by a back-to-work order and will not engage in illegal actions such as work-to-rule.
Jason Schilling says work-to-rule would lead to punishing fines, but he said Tuesday he is urging his colleagues to rethink going the extra mile when it comes to their own time at school.
“They need to evaluate, and re-evaluate, how they’re spending their voluntary time at school,” Schilling told a news conference Tuesday.
“For instance, I used to coach cross-country (running) and direct the drama play. Maybe I’m not going to direct the drama play next year.
“You take my rights away? Then I’m going to re-evaluate the voluntary nature of my job.”
His comments came a day after Premier Danielle Smith’s government introduced and passed through the house a bill ordering the 51,000 teachers to be back on the job Wednesday.
The move ends a three-week strike over wages and working conditions that left more than 740,000 students out of class across the province in the largest walkout in Alberta history.
The bill uses the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to shield the legislation from any court challenge on violating teachers’ constitutional rights to association.
Before the bill was introduced Monday, Smith told reporters the size of the strike and the need for ongoing labour stability in schools required the clause, which overrides Charter rights for up to five years.
The bill imposes a collective bargaining agreement previously put forward by the union and the province, which rank-and-file teachers overwhelmingly rejected in a vote. Teachers would receive a 12 per cent wage hike over four years, with a promise to hire 3,000 more teachers and 1,500 more educational assistants.
The bill also overrides protections in the Alberta Bill of Rights and the Alberta Human Rights Act.
The bill includes steep fines for non-compliance: up to $500 a day for individuals and up to $500,000 a day for the union.
Danielle Smith was not in the legislature when the bill was tabled and later passed. She left Monday afternoon to catch a flight to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, where she will be until Nov. 5 promoting Alberta’s energy industry.
Schilling slammed Smith for not staying to see the process through.
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“I have a lot of thoughts about the fact that the premier of this province who invoked a bill to take away the rights of citizens of this province didn’t even have the decency to be in the legislature,” Schilling said.
“She should have looked in the eyes of the teachers who were in the galleries,” he said. “When that bill was tabled, she should have seen the tears in the eyes of those teachers. I did. So did other members of the legislature.
“It’s unacceptable to me that the leader of this province would choose not to be there when she did such a fundamentally disgraceful thing.”
The premier’s office said the trip to the Middle East had been in the works for over a year, with Smith’s travel dates being finalized well-ahead of the strike action.
Schilling says while the teachers association is still contemplating a court challenge, he declined to say what that might look like.
“We’ll have to leave it up to the experts who we work with in terms of our lawyers about how we move forward with that,” he said.
The core dispute with teachers centred around teacher demands to deliver tangible fixes to address overcrowded classrooms and faltering supports for students with special needs.
Smith’s government has promised to hire 3,000 more teachers and address class sizes and complexities with a panel.
Schilling said they expect to be full partners in that process.
“This government needs to clearly articulate a plan to make it more conducive to the level of teaching and learning that Alberta students and teachers deserve,” he said.
“Finally, we are tired simply of being invited to be participants in government committees and action groups.
“We want to partners rather than props.”
NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said the government chose to go “nuclear” to get out of the problems in public education it had created.
“Albertans will be forgiven for asking themselves, ‘Who’s next?'” he said. “What rights does this premier want to defend and which ones is she willing to trample over and for whom?”
The move puts Smith’s government on a potential collision course with the Common Front, a coalition of more than 350,000 workers in other provincial unions.
The Common Front has promised an “unprecedented response” if the government invoked the clause to override teachers’ constitutional rights to assemble.
Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour and the point person for the Common Front, told reporters Monday they are looking at all options, including a strike.
Later Monday night, in a series of posts on social media, McGowan said meetings are happening Tuesday and an announcement is coming Wednesday.
“My message to Alberta teachers is simple: you will not stand alone,” McGowan wrote.
“All other Alberta unions will meet to finalize a plan for unprecedented collective action. The executive council of the Canadian Labour Congress will also meet in (an) emergency session.”
McGowan added, “(Labour Congress) president Bea Bruske will fly to Alberta for our press conference on Wednesday to pledge the support of the entire labour movement.
“My message to Danielle Smith is also simply: you’re the bully going after workers’ rights and democracy. We will stand up to the bully.”
McGowan said other provincial labour federations are also collecting funds to build a war chest to pay potential fines levied for an illegal strike.
There’s political precedent for using the notwithstanding clause in an attempt to end labour action.
In 2022, Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government used it to prevent a court challenge to a bill stopping 55,000 school support workers from going on strike.
They walked off the job on the day the legislation went into effect, shutting down thousands of schools. But public outcry prompted the province to repeal it.
The teachers from public, separate and francophone schools walked off the job after the two sides failed to find common ground, mainly on the issue of class sizes and complexity. The union called for immediate action on overcrowded classrooms and on the lack of supports for students who need specialized care.
Smith has said the issues can’t be solved with a one-size-fits-all approach at the bargaining table, but require a flexible, collaborative approach.
On Monday, she committed to collecting and publicly reporting data on classroom sizes – a measure abandoned by the United Conservatives under former premier Jason Kenney – and to forming a special panel on classroom complexity.
In the Tuesday statement, the teachers’ association said, “We must be clear: although this legislation might end the strike and lift the lockout, it does not end the underfunding and deterioration of teaching and learning conditions.
“Our schools will not be better for it.”
— With files from Karen Bartko, Global News
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