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The Sturgeon School Division engaged in unfair labour practices when it deliberately and wilfully breached the collective agreement while engaged in local collective bargaining with teachers. The April 21, 2021 decision from Alberta’s Labour Relation Board (LRB) stems from a November 2019 complaint made by the Alberta Teachers’ Association after the board issued a memo restricting Morinville teachers from accessing personal leave.
“In this case, there is a deliberate and willful decision by the Employer to breach the collective agreement during the time that the statutory freeze contained in section 147(2)(b) of the Code is in effect and while the parties are collective bargaining.
“Intentionally flouting the parties’ previous bargaining efforts by proceeding on the very terms expressly rejected by the other party during bargaining cannot be anything but bargaining in bad faith.”
—Written decision of William Johnson, QC, LRB Vice-Chair
Teachers assigned to Morinville and Four Winds public schools were directed in an October 31, 2019 memo that they would not be allowed to access their two days of personal leave during one week that December while the relocation of Four Winds School from the Morinville site to a new site was to be conducted. The board unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate an exception to the collective agreement for this period, and then, according to Johnson, “deliberately conducted itself in accordance with terms it knew the Union did not agree with” by issuing the memo.
“This is an important win for Sturgeon teachers and the Association. We had a particularly bad round of bargaining in Sturgeon this year, and this distrustful behaviour rocked the relationship between teachers and the board to the core.
“Teachers now feel vindicated to know the angst and frustration they were feeling actually stemmed from unfair and ultimately illegal actions by their employer.”
—Sean Brown, ATA Associate Coordinator—Collective Bargaining
The protracted and rocky bargaining round for a 2018–20 local agreement in Sturgeon stretched from October 2019 through to March 2021, which included delays relating to this unfair labour complaint. Sturgeon teachers were forced to authorize—with 98 per cent approval—the taking of a strike vote before an agreement could be negotiated.
“Sturgeon teachers deserved to be treated better. It is essential now for the board to work on repairing relationships with their teachers after this tumultuous round of bargaining.”
—Sean Brown, ATA Associate Coordinator—Collective Bargaining
