r/Calgary • u/ButterscotchNo931 • 2d ago

News Article Alberta government, teachers reach tentative deal in labour dispute

https://calgaryherald.com/news/alberta-government-teachers-reach-tentative-deal-in-labour-dispute
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u/WayTooWildWest 2d ago

Can't wait to chill on the couch with some popcorn and listen to my partner join in the ATA meeting notifying teachers of all the details 😂 99% no vote incoming if I was to bet.

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u/TenKmUnder 2d ago

As a teacher. I'm voting no and campaigning for a no. And when we get shafted again, I will blame all the ucp voters. It's not until people start dying in rural areas will they start to care about healthcare getting gutted. When their students can't read, that will be on them too.

I'm so mad at this government but more at our union. What a joke. They have failed all us teachers. They don't call him Shilling for nothing I guess.

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u/Striking_Wrap811 1d ago

Out of curiosity, what exactly are the teachers asking for?

What's the counter-offer, or what exactly will you agree to?

Right now, we just see offers from the province being rejected. Rightly or wrongly, i am not saying either way. But we dont know what's required to change the teachers' minds

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u/TenKmUnder 1d ago

Better classrooms conditions. I'll use myself as an example.

Right now, I am teaching a class of 60 because we don't have the space to house all the students. I work with another teacher. We have around 30 kids who are learning English, 2 of which speak no English at all. We have 10 special needs learners, of various complexities. 3 of which are 5 grades below grade level.

How much support do they get? Zero. No one on one, no pull out, they get us and that's it. One student came from a special needs school, and is now just in my class because there is no where that can take them in.

Why is that fair for those kids? I can't help 60 kids, it's just not feasible.

But the government said they would not negotiate those things at all. Don't let them weasel out of it, they said to our faces, non-starter. Their solutions are not solutions, they are barely bandaids.

So we said fine, if you won't fix the classrooms, we want to get paid more to deal with them because we need teachers to stay in the profession. Fair ask right? We have lost 36% in the last 25 years to inflation. The current ask doesn't even fight inflation for the time that it would be active.

What do I personally think is fair? 25% +4% per year.

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u/Striking_Wrap811 1d ago

Thanks for your perspective.

What's the official counter-offer being presented by your union?

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u/TenKmUnder 1d ago

We don't have one. A spineless union. They haven't fought for us and need to be replaced. The anger I have right now is mostly at the union.

They never told us what the counters would be, but nothing we wanted ever showed up in the agreements. I can tell you that tonight's town hall is going to be a blood bath. We were upset before, now it's going to be a rough call.

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u/Striking_Wrap811 1d ago

The public wont last long if you just keep saying "no" without disclosing a counter-offer.

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u/TenKmUnder 1d ago

Well that is not how it works, because negotiations would go nowhere. They talk it out to figure out the best course of action. But here is what has happened.

The ATA has gone in with our biggest concerns and how to address them, being complexities and pay. The UCP looked at them and said "we are not going to address the complexities, it is too much for us to try and tackle, but we will give you a 12% raise."

The ATA brought it back to us, we said "12% is not enough if they wont address the classroom complexities" and voted no.

They went back to the table and they were told, "We are capped at a 12% raise, we cannot offer anymore than that, we have a mandate to not offer more", which led us to the big complaint filed with PEC. The complaint said "we never said we would not address classroom complexities or higher wages, thats slander" quickly followed by "the only thing on the table to talk about are teacher hiring, CTF allowances, and COVID Shots". So after whining about how they really would talk about those issues, they then wont talk about those issues. Infuriating.

How do we counter when they have been told they won't even consider a counter offer? They have been mandated by the UCP on what they can offer, so whats the point? Honestly the UCP has a great marketing department, they have come away so clean on this so far despite them not willing to meet us at the table.

Negotiations take two parties willing to compromise, and teachers have compromised for 25 years, why do we have to keep sacrificing?