From the Fraser Institute

By Michael Zwaagstra

In Manitoba, teachers voluntarily gave up the right to strike in the 1950s in exchange for binding arbitration. There’s no evidence this decision harmed Manitoba’s education system. In fact, salaries for Manitoba teachers are currently among the highest in the country.

Alberta students are back in school. But for how long?

That’s an open question, because Alberta teachers are currently in a legal strike position. In June, almost 95 per cent of public school teachers voted to authorize strike action. With talks breaking off recently between the Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association (which represents school boards in the province) and the Alberta Teachers’ Association (which represents teachers in all Alberta public, separate and francophone schools), prospects for a negotiated settlement don’t look good.

The dispute between the two sides is mainly about money. According to the union, the Alberta government is woefully underfunding public education, teacher salaries are too low, classes are too big, and schools lack basic education supplies. The government, of course, disputes these claims and argues that school boards receive more than enough money to educate all students.

Which side is right?

It depends on how you interpret the numbers. While per-student spending in Alberta is lower than the Canadian average, student academic achievement in math, science and reading is well above the Canadian average. There’s no reason to assume that spending more money will automatically lead to better academic results.

Even so, neither side is likely to budge. That’s unfortunate because the people most impacted by a potential strike (students and parents) are without a voice in this dispute. Regardless of which side has the better case, students and their parents will suffer the most during a strike.

This is why Alberta public school teachers shouldn’t have the right to strike. Instead, unresolved labour disputes should automatically go to binding arbitration, where a neutral third party listens to both sides make their respective cases, and then draws up a new collective agreement. Throughout this process students would remain in class and their learning would continue.

Binding arbitration is already a widely accepted way to settle labour disputes. For example, essential workers such as police officers and firefighters regularly use binding arbitration to settle their labour disputes. Given the essential nature of educating students, it’s reasonable to add teachers to this list.

Significantly, there’s precedent for moving in this direction. In Manitoba, teachers voluntarily gave up the right to strike in the 1950s in exchange for binding arbitration. There’s no evidence this decision harmed Manitoba’s education system. In fact, salaries for Manitoba teachers are currently among the highest in the country. Instead of walking a picket line trying to pressure the provincial government to give in to their demands, Manitoba teachers—and students—remain in the classroom until binding arbitration produces a settlement.

In addition, binding arbitration can be used to address more than salary disputes. For example, after a bitter year-long series of intermittent teacher strikes and work-to-rule action, the Saskatchewan government and the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) agreed earlier this year to use binding arbitration to resolve the thorny issue of “classroom complexity”—essentially, how to support students with complex needs. The STF was happy when the Arbitration Board’s final decision placed specific requirements on the province to address the classroom complexity issue.

Imagine how much better it would have been if Saskatchewan students and parents hadn’t suffered a year of labour uncertainty prior to this decision. And of course, teachers lost pay because of the intermittent strikes. Had their labour dispute gone to binding arbitration right away, Saskatchewan teachers would have received reasonable salary increases and a framework for addressing classroom complexity, all without threatening to strike.

Back in Alberta, parents are scrambling to make contingency plans for how they will look after their children if public schools close because of a teacher strike. Alberta has an opportunity to learn from what has happened elsewhere. Students and parents deserve the certainty of knowing that schools will remain open. Teacher strikes should never happen in Alberta. The Smith government should classify teachers as an essential service, and unresolved labour issues should be sent to binding arbitration.

Michael Zwaagstra is a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute.