As the Nova Scotia Teachers Union and Liberal government trade barbs, parents and students are getting few answers as a potential strike inches closer.
Teachers will be in a legal strike position on Dec. 3, but since the latest tentative agreement was rejected in October, the two sides have not met at the bargaining table.
The union twice asked to return to talks either through more conciliation or under a mediator but both attempts failed. In the first request to meet at a conciliation board, the two sides couldn’t agree to preconditions that the government wanted. In the union’s request for a mediator, Labour Minister Kelly Regan denied the request saying the she didn’t believe a mediator could “assist in resolving this dispute.”
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In the absence of talks, the two sides have been trading barbs and playing the blame game as they try to win over public opinion ahead of a potential strike.
The teachers union walked away from separate talks on working conditions, saying the discussions should happen at the bargaining table.
“We are not confident that that committee will do what it was intended to do,” Union President Liette Doucet said Thurday. “It may provide some short term solutions, however, to make those solutions long term they need to come to the bargaining table, and they need to be negotiated.”
Education Minister Karen Casey meantime said she was “disappointed” by the teachers decision and said the department and school boards would address classroom conditions without the union.
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Premier Stephen McNeil has repeatedly committed to returning to bargaining if the teachers agree to accept the compensation on offer. Alternatively he says the union can find cuts elsewhere in order to boost compensation. For example he says the government pays 100 per cent of teachers health benefits.
“We have said we would have gone to the… conciliation board issue is we put parameters around what would have to happen,” McNeil said. “We’ve put on the table a very fair offer across the entire public sector, not just for teachers.”
Teachers will be in a legal strike position in December, however the strike rules mean they could also push off a strike to as late as April. Civil servants are set to vote on a similar contract in mid-December.
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