Contract talks have once again stalled between the Saskatchewan government and the union representing the province's teachers. As a result, 12,000 teachers across the province are withdrawing all services and staging a two-day strike.
The Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation (STF) has announced that effective at 12:01 a.m. today (Wednesday morning), the province's teachers will walk off the job for the next 48 hours. Classes and all extracurricular activities are thereby cancelled for Wednesday and Thursday, as is school bus service.
Horizon School Division and the Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools Division have both sent letters home to parents, notifying them of the strike.
Regular classes will resume on Friday.
The STF and government-trustees' bargaining team broke off three days of negotiations on May 19, after the STF made a revised proposal to their original contract demands. The government refused to move on its offer by more than a hair.
"We came back to the bargaining table with the assumption that the government was fully prepared to bring increased resources to the table," STF representative Gwen Dueck said May 20 in a prepared statement. "Regretfully, we did not hear or see evidence that gives us any confidence that this government is prepared to bargain in good faith."
Originally asking for an increase of 12 per cent in one year, teachers returned to the negotiating table on May 17 with a new proposal calling for 16.3 per cent over the next three years, for an average of 5.4 per cent per year. Their offer was promptly rebuffed.
According to the STF, the government was only willing to sweeten its original offer of 5.5 per cent over three years by barely half a per cent, to 6.05 per cent over three years.
"They demonstrated no flexibility and failed to bring increased resources for us to consider what might become an acceptable collective agreement," Dueck said. "I can tell you with absolute certainty that these kinds of minor adjustments do not contribute to the development of a collective agreement that would be acceptable to our membership, or that would affirm the worth of teachers."
According to Dueck there is an inconsistency when the government speaks of valuing teachers, noting "There seems to be little willingness to demonstrate that in the collective agreement process. Instead, teachers are being threatened with layoffs and being attacked for wanting to participate in Saskatchewan's booming economy."
Yet government-trustee bargaining representative Sandi Urban-Hall insisted it was the teachers who needed to be more reasonable in their demands.
"We had indicated that while there was some financial flexibility within the context of competitive compensation, it would require significant movement away from their demand of 12 per cent," she said.
Humboldt MLA Donna Harpauer has said the government's salary offer to teachers is firm, but she noted there is room to negotiate on other issues.
Saskatchewan NDP leader Dwain Lingenfelter is at a loss to explain the government's position toward teachers - as well as health care sector workers in their current contract dispute - considering the fact Premier Brad Wall has been singing the praises of our economy on every other front.
"What's hard to understand is how at a time when we have record income from potash and oil, and we have more money coming into the province than ever before, that we wouldn't see this as an opportunity to top up the teacher and health care sector salaries a little bit," Lingenfelter told the Humboldt Journal. "CEOs in health care getting 60 per cent increases, and the health care workers and teachers are told to tighten their belts and expect less."
Lingenfelter noted that the current government offer won't even cover the cost of inflation, let alone boost teacher salaries to a level comparable to that of Alberta. Teachers have sought to regain some of the ground lost as teacher salaries in other provinces have risen higher, while Saskatchewan teacher salaries haven't maintained their position in relation to the cost of living.
"The offer of basically 1.5 per cent a year for teachers at a time when the rate of inflation is much higher than that - when gasoline prices are up by 20 per cent, and food is up by 10 per cent, and rent is up by whatever they (landlords) seem to ask - that is really an insult to the men and women who teach and look after our children every day, and are really very, very good at what they do," Lingenfelter said. "They're professionals, and I just think they deserve first of all respect from the government, and second of all, they deserve a very honest and good contract. That's not being offered."
The government is also grappling over the matter of salaries in its contract negotiations with health care sector workers represented by the Health Sciences Association of Saskatchewan. That group - which has been staging rotating strikes amongst its employees not covered by provincial "essential service" legislation - is asking for an additional 18.5 per cent in salary over the next four years, while the government has countered with an offer of 7.5 per cent over four years.
In comparison, the province's licensed practical nurses (LPNs) received an average 17 per cent increase in salaries with their latest contract in February, while in late 2009 an arbitrator awarded registered nurses (RNs) an increase of 35 per cent.
Dueck noted the STF has tried to get the government to agree to binding arbitration in their dispute, but the government has refused.
One argument made by government negotiators in relation to teachers is that Saskatchewan is not facing an imminent shortage in the supply of available teaching professionals. As such, there is no need to pay teachers a higher wage. It's a simple case of supply and demand, Urban-Hall suggested recently.
Lingenfelter scoffed at that comparison.
"My view is teachers and health care givers are not a commodity like wheat or oil," he said. "These are the people who look after our senior citizens, or look after our little kids. And they shouldn't be treated like a commodity. They should be treated fairly when we have extra money in the province. And if we have enough for 60 per cent extra for CEOs and people like that who are already earning a lot of money, then we must have more than 1.5 per cent for the people who look after our kids."
