The Alberta Teachers Association on Friday said it has filed 61 grievances with the Alberta Labour Relations Board over the provincial government's "bad-faith" bargaining during the recent labour dispute. “These actions are necessary because the government has attempted to rewrite its own commitments,” said ATA President Jason Schilling. “Throughout the bargaining process, the government repeatedly promised 3000 new teachers over the next three years.” According to Schilling, the province has changed its position on what it was actually promising. The contract states that over the next year, the province would hire “1000 net new certificated teachers” per year. Schilling asserts that the teachers were led to believe the province would hire 1,000 teachers in addition to the commitments already made in their annual budget. However, he says the province is now implying it will hire 1,000 more than it did last year. “If that was their interpretation, then nothing was new at all,” Schilling said. “The 3000 teachers they pointed to during the bargaining were already announced, already budgeted and already counted in the 2025 budget in February, a full eight months before the government legislatively and legislatively imposed an agreement on teachers.”.This discrepancy is why the ATA is filing 61 grievances, one for every bargaining unit across Alberta. “This is not simply a misunderstanding. It is a breach of good faith,” Schilling said. “It is a misrepresentation that affected the decisions made at the bargaining table, and the understanding of Albertans, and teachers will not accept that.” The ATA claims it filed these grievances to get a commitment that the annual hiring will follow the structure that the teachers believed they were getting. “This government may be comfortable with half-stories and shifting explanations. We are not,” Schilling said. “We will continue to hold them to their commitments, to their own words and to the standards Albertans expect and deserve. This government must be held accountable.”Alberta's Office of Treasury Board and Finance issued a statement on Friday supporting Bill 2. "The intent of Bill 2: the Back to School Act was to get our kids back into the classroom. Alberta’s government stands behind Bill 2," the statement reads. "We understand the ATA has filed a challenge regarding hiring commitments. We will respond to the challenge in due course, and we look forward to this matter being resolved.""Out of respect for the legal process, we have no further comment at this time.”Alberta's Minister of Education and Childcare, Demetrios Nicolaides, declined to comment on the ATA's complaint when asked on Friday.
