The union representing striking Alberta teachers is vowing to launch a legal challenge of the government’s back-to-work bill that was passed through the province’s legislature in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Bill 2, the Back to School Act, was tabled late Monday afternoon in the assembly, passed third reading after 2 a.m. on Tuesday, and received royal assent later Tuesday.
Calling it a “dark day” for the province, Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) president Jason Schilling said Tuesday the union plans to fight the new bill in courts through “every legal avenue.”
“We will challenge this legislation in the courts, in our communities and the very conscience of Albertans,” he said.
“While Alberta may have ended the strike, they have not ended the crisis in Alberta’s classrooms. Our schools will reopen tomorrow, but the same overcrowded classrooms, the same lack of support, the same underfunding, will still be waiting for teachers and students.”
The bill imposes a new collective contract that will run retroactively from Sept. 1, 2024, until Aug. 31, 2028, based on the terms of a proposal that was rejected by nearly 90 per cent of teachers in September, and is backed by Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the notwithstanding clause, to shield it from potential legal challenges.
“By invoking the notwithstanding clause, this government has done more than silence teachers and school leaders. It has a silenced democracy itself,” he said, noting that “compliance was not consent.”
“This is an assault on the rights of every Albertan. If the government can use this clause to take away teachers’ rights today, what will stop them from using it against someone else tomorrow?”
The bill also includes $500 per day fines for those who ignore the return to work mandate which will have students and teachers back in classrooms on Wednesday.
Schilling said the ATA has instructed members to not disobey the back to work order and that any work-to-rule measures could be considered non-compliance under the imposed contract.
“There’s hefty fines that come with that. But they need to evaluate and re-evaluate how they’re spending their voluntary time at school,” he said, referring to extra-curricular activities including drama, music and sports.
“Members can use their own judgment on how they want to go forward with that.”
‘The kids will be going back’
The government introduced the bill in an attempt to end the strike taken by more than 51,000 teachers who have been off the job since Oct. 6 in a dispute over wages, resources, as well as classroom size and complexities.
On Monday, Premier Danielle Smith cited concerns over how the time away from studies was affecting students as well as the government’s efforts to improve the education system.
“We’ve seen how this strike has impacted our students, and we know from the COVID-19 pandemic how quickly and severely learning loss can impact children when they’re not in the classroom.”
She noted the province’s plan to hire more teachers and educational assistance as well as to resume collecting and reporting data on classroom size and composition, something Alberta has not done since 2019, as part of a task force designed to address those issues.
On Tuesday, Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said he is disappointed the two sides had been unable to reach a deal.
“As I spoke to Bill 2 yesterday, I spoke about the severe negative consequences that students are going through right now because of the strike, academic disruption, social disruption, psychological disruption, so I’m comfortable that the kids will be going back so that they can have that routine, have that structure, continue with their academics and their social development,” he said.
“That’s paramount to everything.”
He said no final decision has been made on meeting mandated instructional or provincial achievement testing or diploma exams, but noted each school division managed its own calendar and there would be no provincewide approach to adjusting students’ schedules.
‘She’s scared of debate’: Nenshi
Opposition New Democrats accused the government of having to resort to undemocratic means after being unable to address teachers’ concerns.
“They trampled over the rights of workers and their unions, they did something we’ve seen a lot from them. They refused to solve a problem of their own making,” Official Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi said Tuesday.
“Kids should have been in school the last four weeks, this strike was entirely of the UCP’s own making.”
He repeatedly referred to Smith and her government as “cowardly” for invoking the notwithstanding clause and questioned why she didn’t postpone a 10-day trip to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to promote the province’s energy and agriculture industries that was announced Monday evening.
“What we learned yesterday is she cowered in a business class lounge at the Calgary airport (and) that she is scared. She’s scared of dissent. She’s scared of debate. She won’t even back up her own team.”
The premier’s chief of staff, Rob Anderson, defended the trip in a social media post , saying it had been in planning for more than a year.
‘Unprecedented’ union response
Other unions have promised to take an “unprecedented” response to the government’s use of the notwithstanding clause.
“They’ve launched a war on workers and democracy. We have no intention of letting them get away with it,” Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said in a statement early Tuesday.
“This started as a dispute between teachers and the government. But now they’ve chosen to make this a confrontation between the UCP government and the entire Alberta labour movement.”
He added in a social media post that the unions were meeting on Tuesday to finalize their response with a news conference planned for Wednesday.
McGowan further claimed that provincial labour federations were pooling funds to help pay any potential fines for disobeying the back to work mandate.
“Danielle Smith may have thought she could bully the teachers into submission,” he posted . “We are not going to let that happen.”
mblack@postmedia.com
