The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Teachers are seeing meaningful gains in local bargaining despite very tight school board budgets, said Sandra Johnston, co-ordinator of the Teacher Welfare program area of the Alberta Teachers’ Association.

Twenty-eight of the ATA’s 61 local bargaining units have reached a memorandum of agreement (MOA) for 2018 to 2020. The most significant gains have come in the areas of health and wellness, professional development and personal leave.

“The agreements to date provide several important low-cost improvements for teachers,” Johnston said. “It shows a willingness of teachers and school boards to work together in what is a very difficult financial time.”

As of press time, 17 units have ratified their agreements, and the remaining 11 will be taking a vote in the upcoming weeks.

Teacher wellness

Many of the memoranda include improvements to the language surrounding personal leave. Teachers have gained the ability to accumulate more personal leave days not used in a school year, and several agreements have removed many of the existing restrictions on accessing personal leave.

The very strict schedule that teachers keep can often pose some unique challenges to a healthy work–life balance, Johnston said.

“They don’t have a job where they can leave for a half an hour in the middle of the day to attend to personal needs.”

She said teachers need time flexibility to handle the demands of everyday life so they’re able to return to their jobs and focus on their work.

“One of the ways to provide teachers with that flexibility is through personal leave clauses,” Johnston said.

Another gain for several bargaining units is the creation of a wellness spending account that will enable affected teachers to allocate money from their health spending account to approved health and wellness initiatives.

Professional development

Several settlements also contain upgraded language around professional development. Many bargaining units either established a teacher-controlled PD fund or saw an increase to school division contributions to their existing fund. Johnston sees this as a very important gain for members.

“Teachers have to, under the Teaching Quality Standard, seek out professional development that meets their very specific individual needs,” she said.

Still to come

The important gains achieved through these first 28 agreements will most likely find their way onto the bargaining table for the remaining agreements, Johnston said.

“Teachers in those other 33 will demand it. They’ll ask ‘Why does this person who teaches across the street from me [get it] and I don’t?’”

The 2018–20 round of local bargaining appears to be running a bit more smoothly than the 2016–18 round, Johnston said. While budget cutbacks didn’t play a large role in the recently reached agreements, that may change with some of the upcoming negotiations with larger boards. Johnston believes that the most contentious negotiations may still lie ahead.

“There are school boards who will want to strip things out of contracts,” she said. “They’re not settled yet … and most likely won’t be soon.” ❚