An arbitration board has awarded a new contract to The Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF), a new contract that contains a zero per cent salary increase for the first year, and a one per cent increase in the second year.
The contract expires on Aug. 31, 2019, the one per cent raise takes effect on the same day. The old contract expired Aug. 31, 2017. With the new contract in place there will be no raises from the 2017/18 school year or 2018/19 school year. This applies to approximately 13,500 STF members.
“While the salary package will be disappointing to teachers, it has to be viewed in the context of a persistent government demand for a 3.67 percent wage rollback,” STF President Patrick Maze said.
Premier Scott Moe announced that the province would fully fund the new teacher contract on Aug. 29. The previous contract’s pay raise was partially covered by the province, school divisions covered the other half.
Maze added that the new contract has significant victories for STF members in terms of teacher time and the ability to grieve employers on matters about working conditions.
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“Teachers now have greater protection against arbitrary decisions by their employers,” Maze said.
“And after six years of uncertainty and confusion, teachers are now protected by the provisions of the Task Force on teacher time, something that was promised by the government but never delivered.”
What this means is that there is now a ceiling on the amount of time and employer can say a teacher must work in the building. The arbitrator set the ceiling at 1,044 hours, the STF suggestion. A school year works out to 985 hours.
It wasn’t all good news for the teachers’ union, the arbitration panel rejected a proposal the STF says would have addressed issues around class size and composition. Maze considers no restrictions on class size to be the biggest issue facing Saskatchewan teachers and students.
“The work load is not sustainable, and with government cuts to education combined with over 2,700 new students, we need to meet those challenges,” Maze said.
The province cut $54 million from education funding in the 2017/18 budget. This year $30 million in funding was returned to Saskatchewan’s classrooms.
This was the first time the STF and province had to go to arbitration. With the contract expiring in under a year it won’t be too long until the two sides return to the bargaining table. Maze said there is still ground to make up in the relationship.
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