As strike looms, Alberta teachers say they’ll return to bargaining once province does

With days to go until Alberta’s teachers are set to strike, their union head said Thursday they will go back to the bargaining table when the province does.

Jason Schilling with the Alberta Teachers’ Association said further negotiation talks haven’t been scheduled ahead of Monday’s deadline.

It comes as the union and Alberta’s government remain at a stalemate over several concerns, mainly wages and working conditions.

“We’re always interested in having negotiations and returning to the table and talking about the issues that teachers want to see addressed through the collective agreement,” Schilling said in an interview.

“It’s whether or not government is willing to come to the table with some serious intentions to address those issues.”

A walkout by the union’s 51,000 members would affect more than 700,000 students in 2,500 public, separate and francophone schools.

Finance Minister Nate Horner has said the government’s offer of a 12 per cent wage increase over four years, as well as a promise to hire 3,000 more teachers and to cover the cost of a COVID-19 vaccine, is a good one.

Schilling has said the hiring figure is a drop in the bucket compared to what’s needed, noting that the province needs to hire at least 5,000 more instructors to align with current student-teacher ratios.

Those ratios, based on government figures released in 2002 when teachers last went on strike, vary by grade level. Kindergarten to Grade 3 classrooms would have 13 children per teacher, while those for junior high and high school would sit at 27 students per teacher.

It also included a model and a formula to address complexity, Schilling said.

“When you look at those targets and the equal numbers, we are probably about 500-plus teachers behind what should have been hired by government,” he said.

Asked how much of a difference those extra hires would make compared with the government’s offer, Schilling said it would be significant. He wouldn’t commit to bringing that number to the bargaining table.

“For instance, where you have schools that might have a class that’s 42, you could hire another teacher to split that class,” he said.

“If you have large classes of 35 that have a lot of needs within that classroom, but you don’t have the ability to split it, you could have two teachers working in that room … Schools would be very creative with how teachers could be utilized.”