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A letter to members from ATA President Frank Bruseker

November 23, 2007

Dear Colleagues,

ATA President Frank BrusekerAfter years of concerted effort by individual teachers and their Association, our profession has much to celebrate. Collectively, we have achieved our long-standing goal of ensuring the financial security of our pension plan at a reduced cost to members and, at the same time, have laid the foundation for a new era in public education in Alberta.

The memorandum of agreement that the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the Government of Alberta have concluded will see the provincial government assume full responsibility for the pre-1992 unfunded liability of the Teachers’ Pension Plan, resulting in an immediate and a permanent cost saving to our members. The agreement will ensure that teachers share in the prosperity of the province, linking our salary increases to increases in Alberta average weekly earnings. On April 30, 2008, all teachers included in collective agreements and under contract will receive an additional lump-sum payment of $1,500. Were this agreement just about money, we would have good reason to accept it.

But it is about more than money. The agreement we have reached keeps faith with teachers who have served in the past, who are serving now and who will be serving in the future. It preserves pension entitlements while removing an unfair, intergenerational debt that was increasingly being borne by teachers at the beginning of their career.

The agreement also keeps faith with our vision of our profession. We have secured from government solemn commitments that the community of educators will not be divided and our school administrators will remain with us in a single Association. We have obtained assurances that the rights of our members to fair treatment in matters of employment will not be compromised by the abolition of the Board of Reference. We have established mechanisms that will ensure that the voice of teachers is heard when the government makes critical decisions affecting public education.

Most importantly, this agreement keeps faith with the students and communities we serve. We have now a framework that provides for five years of labour peace—a period in which teachers can concentrate on doing what teachers do best, attending to the diverse educational needs of the children who are placed in our care. We have ensured that the quality of their education will not be compromised by this agreement and that its costs will be fully funded by the province of Alberta.

Over the last fifteen years, we have been saddled with a pension agreement that did not treat teachers fairly and that threatened to impose an overwhelming burden on future generations. The story today is very different. We negotiated this agreement from a position of integrity and with an overarching interest in advancing public education. We have achieved our objectives.

When the time comes for teachers to cast their votes for ratification, this is an agreement that each one of us can be proud to support.

ATA President Frank Bruseker signature
ATA President Frank Bruseker


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