They finally have a deal.
After two years of negotiating, the Manitoba Teachers’ Society and the Manitoba School Boards Association reached a tentative agreement last month.
If the agreement is ratified by teachers, this will be their first provincewide collective agreement. Considering the agreement’s cumulative 12.85 per cent wage increase over a four-year period and the significant improvements to prep time and work life balance, it’s highly likely this proposed contract will earn a thumbs up from teachers.
Harmonizing teacher contracts across the province makes a lot of sense. There’s no reason why a teacher in Winkler should earn less than a teacher in Gimli when they do the same job. Nor is it fair for teachers in some school divisions to get more prep time than teachers in other divisions.
However, unlikely as it seems, there is still a possibility that teachers will vote this contract down. If that happens, the dispute would be settled by binding arbitration.
Importantly, at no point in this process is there any possibility of a strike. That’s because Manitoba teachers voluntarily gave up the right to strike in the 1950s in exchange for a guarantee of binding arbitration to settle intractable differences.
This arrangement has been good for teachers, students, parents, and taxpayers. Teachers get fair contracts and above-average pay compared with other provinces. In turn, students and parents never have to worry about class time being lost because of teacher strikes. And taxpayers don’t have to worry about the financial impact of costly labour disputes.
All we have to do is look at our neighbouring provinces of Ontario and Saskatchewan to see just how disruptive teacher strikes are to the lives of students and parents.
As a teacher, I can safely say that I have never wanted to go on strike and I’m glad that teachers don’t have that option in Manitoba. Schools provide an essential service, and they must remain open. And, of course, teachers need to be treated appropriately and paid fairly.
However, while teachers cannot go on strike, other education workers can. For example, educational assistants in Hanover School Division went on strike for three weeks last fall. Earlier this year, custodians in the Seine River School Division also went on a three-week strike.
Meanwhile, bus drivers in Winnipeg School Division went on strike for 90 days during the 2020/21 school year.
In each of these cases, schools remained open, but students and their parents experienced significant hardships. It also affected other school division employees as they were often asked to pick up some of their striking colleagues’ duties.
Even when strikes are headed off at the last minute, the stress of a potential labour dispute weighs heavily on everyone. No one benefits from such uncertainty.
The solution is obvious—make all education workers essential and send any unresolved labour disputes to binding arbitration. If binding arbitration is good for teachers, it should be good for everyone else who works in a school.
Not only will these education workers likely end up with better collective agreements in the long run, but they will never need to walk a picket line again. Most important, students will not miss out on their education.
Strikes have no place in school. Keep the focus on learning.
Michael Zwaagstra is a public high school teacher and a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
