Executive Summary
- The Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS) is responsible for representing the interests of all 14,000 of its members.
- Principals and vice-principals are considered teachers and are full members of (MTS).
- The primary goal of MTS is the improvement of working conditions for teachers.
- The job description of school principals makes it clear that they perform managerial functions.
- Unions normally exclude managers from membership.
- It is impossible for MTS to adequately represent the interests of principals when it regularly takes the side of teachers at Board of Arbitration hearings.
- Principals have found that the Manitoba Teachers’ Society has been an active opponent of any attempt to exercise their management prerogatives in areas such as work assignments to employees.
- Several other provinces, most notably British Columbia and Ontario, recognized this inherent conflict and established separate associations for principals and teachers.
- Manitoba should create the Manitoba Principals’ Society, which would be responsible for representing the interests of principals and vice-principals.
- Separating the Manitoba Principals’ Society from the Manitoba Teachers’ Society would ensure that both organizations would be able to represent the interests of their respective members more effectively.
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