Premier Danielle Smith says her government’s offer to Alberta teachers is fair and competitive, urging the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) to reconsider strike plans less than three weeks before a planned walkout on Oct. 6.Smith told the media that the province’s 12% wage increase over four years would leave Alberta’s teachers earning $6,000–$9,000 more after taxes than their counterparts in Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Manitoba.“We’re using the same data we agreed to at the bargaining table,” she said, emphasizing that her government’s proposal is a fair settlement that puts “our teachers well above others in the western provinces.”The premier’s remarks come after the ATA said earlier in the week that the province had been delaying and sabotaging the bargaining process, after the government filed a complaint with the Labour Relations Board against the union, which represents the province’s 51,000 teachers.Smith argued that the ATA’s focus should shift from higher salaries to reducing class sizes and classroom complexity..UPDATED: Alberta Teachers Association announces possible strike date.“You solve class size by hiring more teachers, and you solve classroom complexity by hiring more education assistants,” she said.“You don’t solve that by just getting higher and higher salaries.”She said the province has met the ATA’s demands to hire 1,000 new teachers annually, to add more education assistants, and to invest $8.6 billion in new schools, so she is not sure why the ATA leadership is “barreling ahead with a strike” when the association has admitted that “they don’t have strike pay for their teachers.”Smith said she didn’t think it was fair that teachers will now have to dip into their own pockets for any of the days they’re out on the picket line.“The ATA leadership has to understand the very difficult situation they’re putting their teachers in and must know that we want to come to a fair deal,” she said, emphasizing they were taking the teachers out “on a strike that isn’t necessary and is counter to the progress we’re making at the table.”
