Canada : Liberal government to legislate end to teachers dispute
Premier Stephen McNeil will introduce legislation Monday evening to impose a contract on the province's 9,300 public school teachers.
"The strike action by the union has impacted students and their families
The premier will call MLAs back to the house on Monday at 8 p.m. to consider the legislation.
Liette Doucet, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, said in a release Saturday night that the union was not informed of the intention to legislate and found out only by way of the government news release.
"This is consistent with the McNeil government’s well-documented lack of respect for the collective rights of workers," Doucet said.
"Teachers have been taking a stand for better classroom conditions. They are tired of having their concerns ignored. Unfortunately, the government has not been willing to make the needed investments to improve our education system. It’s clear Premier McNeil knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing."
The government move comes after 78.5 per cent of Nova Scotia Teachers Union members voted Thursday to reject the latest tentative agreement reached between the province and the union.
"The latest deal contained fair wage increases and made investments in classrooms," McNeil said. "It showed we wanted to work with teachers to make our classrooms stronger."
Doucet said a legislated contract will do nothing to improve the state of the province's schools and will only further erode the trust between teachers and this government.
"Teachers have spoken loud and clear yet again," she said a day after the vote. "They are frustrated and angry and they don't trust government.
"We were able to make gains in this contract. I think if teachers trusted the government, they may have been able to look at those gains a bit differently. They still don't trust that those articles will make a difference."
Classroom working conditions have been a major issue for the union since the labour dispute began. Doucet said that government could have at any time introduced measures outside the contract that would have provided much-needed support for teachers in the classroom.
"Teachers recognize that government could be making changes right now. They could have made changes already but they haven't, they are not, they are not listening. Teachers didn't see a resolution to what they are dealing with."
The government's decision Saturday did not come as a surprise to the union, whose members have been working-to-rule since Dec. 5.
"We have to look at the real possibility that the government could legislate," Doucet said earlier this weekend. "We have to make sure our members are prepared for that possibility."
The union had determined after the rejection vote that it would continue the work-to-rule protocol, which had teachers focusing exclusively on teaching. The provincewide job action had teachers truncating their days, arriving at school 20 minutes before it begins and departing 20 minutes after the final bell.
Participation in extracurricular activities was withdrawn, meaning after-school sports events, coaching, concerts and field trips were cancelled.
"I want to assure Nova Scotians that I have done considerable soul-searching," McNeil said of the legislation. "It is clear: we must bring an end to this dispute so the lives of students and parents can return to normal."
It is clear to NDP Leader Gary Burrill that imposed legislation is not the best way to proceed.
"For over a year, teachers, parents and students have called for investments in reducing class sizes and increasing supports for teachers in the classroom," Burrill said in a release.
"Instead of listening to these concerns, Stephen McNeil has made it clear that he is willing to balance the budget at the cost of our children's education and the health and well-being of the people that teach them."
Burrill said that by imposing a contract, the premier is once again saying that he can't and won't address classroom problems.
The government first intended to impose legislation on Dec. 5 and closed all the province's schools for that day, claiming that students were unsafe because of the work-to-rule protocol. The government relented on both the legislation and the school closures at that time.
Thursday's vote marked the third time in 14 months that a tentative agreement was shot down by the union membership, comprised of classroom and specialist teachers, administrators, psychologists, speech language pathologists and school board consultants.
The teachers' collective agreement expired in July 2015.