Union worries teachers will lose out on pay bump if school divisions don't offer new deal soon

Teachers' associations for Manitoba's three largest school divisions say their employers are refusing to negotiate new contracts, and they're troubled about what could happen if a looming provincial bill comes into effect.

Members of the Winnipeg Teachers' Association, a Manitoba Teachers' Society local branch that represents over 3,000 staff in the Winnipeg School Division, haven't received a wage increase since 2018, when their previous contract expired.

"The landscape right now is very worrisome to teachers who don't have a collective agreement that takes us to 2022," Winnipeg Teachers' Association president Michelle Wolfe said on Tuesday.

The union filed for arbitration in March 2019 and was later assigned an arbitration date of July 22 this year.

Last week, Wolfe made a case to school board trustees for instead settling on a new agreement to avoid arbitration. 

She cited a decision in February by an arbitration board that ruled against the Pembina Trails School Division's attempt to freeze teachers' wages. 

Teachers there received a new contract with backdated raises of 1.6 per cent for 2018-19, 1.4 per cent for 2019-20 and 0.5 per cent for this school year. The pay bump for the next school year will be based on projected cost of living increases.

That ruling was another blow to the Pallister government's attempts to legislate wage freezes for 100,000 public sector workers for two years. A judge called that legislation draconian and struck it down in court last year.

Match Pembina Trails, union says

Wolfe argued for the sake of expediency, the Winnipeg School Division should agree to match the standard set in the Pembina Trails arbitration, as 34 of 38 divisions have done since. The school division has instead opted to wait for the scheduled arbitration in July, Wolfe said.

CBC News asked the division for a response to the union's concerns.

"We are grateful for all the dedication and commitment … that the WSD staff have shown, but we will not negotiate in the media," Betty Edel, chair of the Winnipeg School Division board of trustees, said in a statement.

The River East Transcona Teachers' Association, which represents more than 1,500 teachers, and the Louis Riel Teachers' Association, which has 1,200 members, both local branches of the Manitoba Teachers' Society, are also without contracts from their respective divisions.

"We wanted to make you aware that the River East Transcona School Division is the only school division in the province that is proposing the unconstitutional Bill 28 general percentage increase of two years of wage freezes (0 per cent), followed by 0.75 per cent in year three and one per cent in the final year of a four-year agreement (2018-22)," says a letter sent out May 6 by the Manitoba Teachers' Society.

"The division's proposal is totally unacceptable."

'Race against the clock'

The letter, which lists contact information for trustees and senior administrators in the River East Transcona division, encourages teachers to reach out and demand the same deal given in Pembina Trails and the other 34 divisions.

"There is absolutely no justification for teachers in River East Transcona to receive anything less," it says.

"We are now in a race against the clock because Bill 45, which moves teachers to a provincial bargaining model, can be proclaimed as early as May 20, 2021. Once proclaimed, this bill will end all local bargaining, and deny you an arbitration process with your division to settle your next collective agreement."

The letter says the River East Transcona Teachers' Association has requested an expedited arbitration process "before the clock runs out," but the division has refused.

The Public Schools Amendment and Manitoba Teachers' Society Amendment Act, or Bill 45, would create a single employer's organization that would negotiate collective agreements for all teachers in Manitoba.

That would replace separate agreements struck at the divisional level — once they expire — except for in the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine.

"Throughout the pandemic, the Louis Riel School Division has tried to always act in the best interest of its teachers. Unfortunately, as teachers face the real possibility of wage freezes for the foreseeable future, the division has failed to come to the table to negotiate a fair deal," says a letter to Louis Reil Teachers' Association members from president Marcela Cabezas that was sent on Wednesday.

Cabezas also suggests teachers contact trustees and urge them to work out details for a new agreement.

The division has the opportunity, by negotiating a contract before the Bill 45 deadline, to show "a recognition of the sacrifices that have been made by its teachers, principal teachers, clinicians and co-ordinators during these challenging times," Cabezas's letter says.

Concerns valid: labour expert

Unions with expired collective agreements at the time the new law is proclaimed would automatically fall within the jurisdiction of the single overarching employer's organization, labour expert David Camfield said.

If the legislation comes into effect soon, it could override the planned arbitration, Camfield said, and Winnipeg School Division educators could end up with getting lower or no raises, depending on how the legislation is interpreted. 

"If the provincial government's changes to the financing of public schools leads to less money for the school divisions, then that begins to stack the deck in arbitration," said Camfield, an associate professor of labour studies and sociology at the University of Manitoba.

"If the employer's organization points to what the financial situation is and says, 'You know, in Winnipeg, we've got a growing population, lots of needs and not so many resources,' then teachers are going to find that their pay settlements are going to be restricted by this. And that's, I think, the intent of the legislation." 

'Stress and anxiety'

Wolfe said the prospect of Bill 45 taking teacher bargaining power out of the hands of school divisions and local unions is worrying teachers in the division.

"We very much feel like the clock is ticking," she said. "It's resulting in some stress and anxiety."

Wolfe hopes the Winnipeg School Division chooses to settle before the legislation is proclaimed.

"We understand that the government has kind of backed divisions into a corner, but many other divisions have made this choice for their teachers," she said.