Mandryk: Rare good faith required for teachers’ dispute breakthrough

Article content

Is it possible that we are really seeing a breakthrough in the Saskatchewan Party government/teachers’ labour dispute?

“I think we’re closer than we have ever been,” said Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) president Samantha Becotte.

Article content

This would seem a very positive development.

But let us observe the old proverb about counting one’s chickens before they hatch — especially given the unresolved issues in the nest between the cock of the walk rooster and the hens who probably still want to peck his eyes out.

Article content

It still comes down to the STF’s insistence that commitment to address classroom composition and complexity must be “legally binding” in the contract. Adding a clause in the Education Act and dumping the issue on school trustees isn’t the same thing.

What might also be helpful is Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill refraining from being so antagonistic toward teachers … although the government’s bellicose approach was plastered on billboards before Cockrill arrived in the education portfolio.

The problem is, Cockrill keeps worsening the relationship. He’s added new reasons for teachers to distrust him and his Sask. Part government.

Cockrill has continued to insinuate the untrue narrative that teachers have “been moving the goalposts.” He proposed larger previously rejected alternatives to the teachers’ request to address classroom complexity and composition. As is their right, the teachers rejected them.

Perhaps the teachers’ bargaining committee has been every bit as intransigent on this key sticking point, but, unhelpfully, Cockrill has played politics.

Article content

Article content

In fact, he repeated this insinuation in a recent letter to trustees, in which he further implied that it was “not fair” teachers were “targeting our students.”

“I am counting on trustees to help make the case to the public that this round of bargaining has been about control and not our students,” said Cockrill in his letter to trustees menacingly suggesting that this collective bargaining agreement “has significant implications of the role of school boards going forward.”

Hmmm? How would it change the “role” of local school boards? And how productive is it to ask trustees to help vilify teachers, understanding that while trustees are employers in these negotiations, they have the dual responsibility of working with teachers as managers and administrators of local education delivery?

Of course, one expects the Saskatchewan School Boards Association (SSBA) to be in solidarity with the government anyway. That Cockrill felt the need to write this letter is puzzling.

Might it be what NDP education critic Matt Love described in Wednesday’s question period as “cryptic threats” to intimidate? As also noted by Love, the fact that the first school board to take Cockrill up on his offer was one chaired by Sask. Party Saskatchewan Rivers candidate Darlene Rowden is also telling.

Article content

Good faith in bargaining means just that. This dispute has dragged on specifically because of things like Cockrill’s letter to the trustees.

Trustees should also be speaking up.

Yet, miraculously, we have somehow arrived at a place where both Cockrill and Becotte are suggesting there is reason for optimism.

Why? Well, the commonality for both sides is the realization that neither can afford to have this impasse go on forever.

Eventually, the teachers are going to run out of strike fund money and perhaps also the public goodwill they need to convince the government to change its position.

This may be why you haven’t seen a prolonged, provincewide strike and instead more one-day, area strikes … and now a work-to-rule indefinite withdrawal of unpaid extracurricular activities. But if this move isn’t draining the STF strike fund, it may be draining public goodwill toward teachers.

After all, even indefinite work-to-rule job action can’t go on indefinitely — at least, not without irritating parents.

But a Sask. Party government going into an election can’t afford to burn any of its goodwill, either. Cockrill’s plea for help from trustees seems an attempt to smother smouldering anger toward the government.

It is surprising.

But maybe — hopefully — both sides see the value in settling matters.

Murray Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

Article content