The financial impact of the Alberta teachers' strike is a loss made worse by the fact that the Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) does not provide any strike pay to its members. The amount teachers are losing out on each day — well, the Western Standard has those numbers.The salary amount Alberta teachers receive is partly determined by seniority and partly by Teacher Qualification Service (TQS) which is allocated based off the years of education the teacher receives. TQS is based on four, five or six years of education approved by the ATA.With that said, let's reveal the amount of compensation teachers are losing per day... .In the Calgary public school system, a teacher with less than one year of experience (depending on their TQS level) is losing between $306 to $345 per day during the strike. Over 21 days, this adds up to $6,436 to $7,244.A teacher with five years of experience, the salary loss amounts to between $396 to $435 per day. After 21 days, this loss totals $8,322 to $9,131.Just to drive home the amount that is being lost — a teacher with 10 years of experience loses $487 to $526 per day and after 21 days, $10,235 to $11,043. In Edmonton public schools, a teacher with five years of experience is losing $396 to $433 per day and a 10-year teacher loses a crisp $487 to $525 per day. .In the ATA's initial proposal for "Central Matters Bargaining 2024" they wrote Alberta teachers' salary have increased by 1.79% per year since 2005, while Alberta's inflation has averaged 2.45% per year.They also claim since 2005 teachers have fallen behind inflation by 10.5%.They say a 34.7% catch-up increase is needed to return teachers' peak purchasing power, which they had in 2010/11. This comes after the government had proposed in September a 12% wage increase over four-year period..The ATA's members rejected the government's deal by an almost 90% margin.Finance Minister Nate Horner had confirmed the ATA presented an offer to the Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association (TEBA), and both sides had previously agreed to move forward with a tentative deal, before it was rejected by teachers.“The ATA’s rejected deal would have provided tremendous investments in classroom supports to help alleviate population growth and classroom complexity pressures with the hiring of 3,000 new teachers and over 1,500 new educational assistants in public, separate and francophone classrooms. This would have been in addition to the hiring required to replace retiring and departing teachers,” stated Minister Horner in a statement reacting to the rejection..“The deal also would have provided a general wage increase of 12% over the four-year term, as well as a wage grid unification which would have provided more than 95% of teachers even larger wage increases up to 17%."
