Alberta public sector workers, experts point to provincial interference in collective bargaining
CUPE says mandate on how much school boards can offer is delaying negotiations
As thousands of school support workers strike across Alberta, union organizers on the picket line have argued the provincial government could step in to end the strikes.
The province has countered the issue is a local bargaining matter it won't get involved in.
Some labour experts point to provincial legislation that could be interfering with ongoing negotiations between school boards and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in Alberta.
More than 1,100 custodial and maintenance workers from Calgary's two largest school districts, the Calgary Board of Education and Calgary Catholic School District, went on strike this week. They're joined by thousands more education support workers around the province on the picket line.
CUPE Alberta president Rory Gill argued on the picket line on Monday that the province has the resources to step in and provide school districts with enough funding to end the strike but is preventing school boards from negotiating a higher deal with workers than the terms the government has laid out.
Jason Foster, a labour relations professor at Athabasca University, co-authored a Parkland Institute report last year that delved into the province's involvement in collective bargaining with public sector workers. He argues it's unsurprising to see negotiations drag out between CUPE and school boards because employers don't have the authority to get a deal done.
The province created the Public Sector Employers Act in 2019, which allows the finance minister to direct public employers to set terms and spending limits for collective agreements. The province says employers must not publicize which terms are flexible and which are immutable government directives.
This ability for the province to interfere in negotiations, Foster argues, throws bargaining off the rails.
"It becomes impossible for the parties to be able to come up with a deal because the employers have to look over their shoulder at the provincial government, who's imposed this mandate on them that they can't even talk about," Foster said. "They can't even admit at the table that there is a mandate or what the mandate is."
That mandate, Foster said, prevents school boards from negotiating an agreement offering public sector workers more than what the government's mandate lays out. He argued this breaks down trust at the bargaining table.
In a statement Tuesday, the office of the Ministry of Treasury Board and Finance said Alberta's government provides funding to school boards, and school boards negotiate directly with unions, but there are fiscal limits imposed on school boards for collective bargaining under the Public Sector Employers Act.
The province says CUPE is asking for wage increases that far exceed the school boards' ability to pay.
"No one doing this work anywhere in Canada is receiving these types of increases," the province said.
The Calgary Board of Education told CBC News on Tuesday that it respects the bargaining process and is committed to bargaining in good faith with CUPE Local 40 to reach a new agreement.
But Foster says he believes the school boards would have settled long before now if they had the capacity to do so. He added that he saw the effect the Public Sector Employers Act had on negotiations first-hand when he was the chair of his faculty association's bargaining committee. He noted employers couldn't budge during negotiations due to the province's mandate.
"It has a profound effect on what happens at the table," Foster said.
Without an ability to negotiate with employers above the mandate, public sector workers instead have to find ways to pressure the provincial government, possibly through public opinion and encouraging Albertans to call their MLAs.
Gil McGowan, Alberta Federation of Labour president, agreed the province's mandates affect most unions in the provincially funded public sector.
"Frankly, from our perspective, it makes a mockery of the whole negotiation process," McGowan said.
McGowan added that collective bargaining is a process of compromise, but a mandate coming from the provincial government removes that process of give and take in negotiations.
Last year, the province offered members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees a 7.5 per cent wage increase over four years during bargaining for new collective agreements. McGowan argued the figure is unacceptable amid a cost of living crisis in Canada. He added the inability to negotiate for more could lead to more public sector workers joining the picket line.
"The workers are saying they can't afford not to go on strike given how far they're falling behind the rising cost of living," McGowan said.
"Today, it's education support workers, but in the next few weeks it might be teachers, might be nurses, might be other health-care workers. But this is the product of the strategy the UCP has adopted."
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With files from Colleen Underwood