Nova Scotia teachers and all other educational support people will work-to-rule beginning on Monday, Dec. 5, the Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NSTU) announced Monday.
READ MORE: Stephen McNeil holding firm line on negotiations with teachers
Talks broke down again Friday between the NSTU and the government, after teachers voted no to two tentative agreements, and delivered a 96 per cent strike mandate in October.
What is work-to-rule?
Work-to-rule means teachers, administrators, school psychologists, speech language pathologists, school board consultants or other NSTU public school members won’t do any work that falls outside their contract.
The main impact on students, according to an NSTU release, are:
- Teachers will arrive at school 20 minutes early and leave 20 minutes after school ends
- Teachers won’t collect any money from students
- Teachers won’t do clerical duties or data entry and attendance will be monitored on paper
- Extra-curricular activities will stop, including concerts, team coaching and clubs
- Field trips will not go ahead.
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NSTU President Liette Doucet said Monday that teachers would not be attending any meetings, like staff meetings or parent-teacher meetings, that don’t directly pertain to student safety.
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Classroom instruction will carry on as usual, NSTU says. Lesson plan preparation and teaching will continue.
NSTU also says teachers will maintain communication with parents and guardians of students who are “at risk and/or have special needs.”
Teachers remaining in classrooms
Doucet said the union decided on work-to-rule as opposed to a full strike or rotating strikes to “make sure that we remained in the classroom.”
“We wanted to make sure that we are teaching our students, we wanted to make sure that our students are successful and we want to demonstrate to the government that we are still committed to getting back to the table, we are committed to ensuring that students are learing and that students are safe at school.”
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Doucet said the union is hoping to return to the bargaining table, however the union walked away from talks Friday saying government was not willing to negotiate on major sticking points like classroom working conditions and maintaining the long service award.
She said that in order for a deal to be reached, the government would have to come to the table with significantly more than $10 million a year for the next two years to address working conditions.
“We don’t believe we’re asking too much,” she said. “We believe that our asks were fair, we believe that what we’re asking for would help students in the classroom, we are trying to make our classrooms better for students and we were looking for supports for students, and that’s the bottom line.”
READ MORE: N.S. teachers agree to talk working conditions away from negotiating table
In a briefing with reporters on Monday, the government said the union left the negotiating table before talks could start in earnest on the union’s requests.
As of now, Doucet said the union hasn’t made any decision on whether they will eventually engage in a full strike.
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