{"id":244613,"date":"2025-10-28T01:33:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T01:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/244613\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T01:33:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T01:33:15","slug":"albertas-plan-to-force-teachers-back-to-work-expected-to-further-inflame-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/244613\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta\u2019s plan to force teachers back to work expected to further inflame dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the strike by Alberta\u2019s 51,000 teachers into its fourth week, the province\u2019s UCP government claims it has already caused \u201cirreparable harm\u201d to students.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s why Premier Danielle Smith\u2019s government tabled back-to-work legislation on Monday evening<\/a>, forcing teachers to return to the classroom this coming Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The province and the Alberta Teachers\u2019 Association<\/a> have been deadlocked in a dispute over wages and classroom conditions, with the province\u2019s latest offer including a 12 per cent wage hike over four years and a promise to hire 3,000 more teachers.<\/p>\n

Under the bill that will go through readings on Monday night, the ATA and its members would face hefty fines if they don\u2019t comply: up to $500 a day for individuals and $500,000 a day for the union.<\/p>\n

It would also impose a collective bargaining agreement previously put forward by the union and the province, which rank-and-file teachers overwhelmingly rejected in a vote.<\/p>\n

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Despite the promise to hire more teachers and education assistants and address classroom complexity, education experts agree the labour dispute has already taken a heavy toll on students.<\/p>\n

David Johnson, a professor who studies education policy at the C.D. Howe Institute, says while students may benefit in the future from having smaller class sizes, the more immediate impact is less certain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re much more confident that the student\u2019s experiencing the strikes are losing than we are if a class size moves from 25 to 23 that those students are a whole lot better off in the future,\u201d says Johnson.<\/p>\n

That experience appears to be borne out by what happened in Ontario, where a series of elementary teachers\u2019 strikes or lockouts between 1998 and 2003 lasted between one and 15 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked quite carefully at strikes in Ontario, where we\u2019d had a lot of strikes,\u201d said Johnson.\u00a0\u201cWe were able to both show in different ways that the elementary school outcomes as measured by the reading and literacy tests (that) students who experienced strikes did worse than students who did not experience strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParents, teachers protest as Alberta government poised to order educators back to work\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

While the back-to-work legislation aims to force teachers to return to the class this week, it will most certainly not mark the end of the dispute.<\/p>\n

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The move puts Smith\u2019s government on a potential collision course with more than 350,000 workers in other provincial unions, which promised an \u201cunprecedented response\u201d if the government invoked the clause to override teachers\u2019 constitutional rights to assemble.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\tAlberta teachers rally as premier announces back-to-work legislation\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\tAlberta teachers gather at legislature as MLAs return to work\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Jason Schilling, head of the Alberta Teachers\u2019 Association, is expected to comment later Monday.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"For<\/p>\n

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For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.<\/p>\n

But amongst their options could be some sort of work to rule, which would affect things like sports and other extracurricular activities, or even refusing to comply with the back to work order.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the teachers decide to comply with that legislation they could be back in classrooms as early as Wednesday or Thursday,\u201d says Jason Foster, a labour relations professor at Athabasca University.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they choose not to comply and stay out on strike, then we just have giant question marks.\u00a0 How long do they do that, how long do they hold out, how does this other ancillary labour movement mobilization impact the dynamics and so then we\u2019re just in unchartered territory,\u201d added Foster.<\/p>\n

The back-to-work legislation could also be challenged in court as unconstitutional \u2014 a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<\/p>\n

During her weekend radio show, Premier Danielle Smith didn\u2019t rule out using the notwithstanding clause in the constitution to override any court challenge.<\/p>\n

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If that happens, the Alberta Federation of Labour is threatening much broader labour action.<\/p>\n

The AFL says it has gathered together 30 different unions, representing about 350,000 employees province with that are willing to mobilize against the government\u2019s use of the notwithstanding clause.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of the notwithstanding clause in the context of collective bargaining would be unprecedented,\u201d says AFL President Gil McGowan.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it\u2019s unprecedented and frankly an unprecedented threat to workers\u2019 rights and democracy, we would have no choice but to mobilize an unprecedented response,\u201d added McGowan.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta unions warn of \u2018unprecedented response\u2019 if province invokes notwithstanding clause\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a threat that drew a warning from Alberta Minister of Finance Nate Horner.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo other unions are in a legal position to strike currently. So if they\u2019re proposing severe illegal wildcat strike action there\u2019s severe consequences at the labour relations board for this,\u201d said Horner.<\/p>\n

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At a rally in Calgary on Monday morning, many teachers remained defiant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the government is willingly able to go forward with taking away our right to strike, that really does set the precedent for other labour unions that maybe our democratic rights aren\u2019t really rights all along,\u201d said teacher James Smith.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strike by Alberta\u2019s teachers began on Oct. 6.<\/p>\n

With files from Lisa Johnson and Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the strike by Alberta\u2019s 51,000 teachers into its fourth week, the province\u2019s UCP government claims it has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7611,60893,64916,49,48,549,44,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-244613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-alberta-legislature","9":"tag-alberta-teachers-association","10":"tag-alberta-teachers-strike","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-education","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}