After months of back-and-forth negotiations, three rejected tentative agreements and work-to-rule job action, the conflict between the Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NSTU) and the provincial government has come to a head.
For the first time in its union’s history, teachers across Nova Scotia are on strike for the day.
“In the entire 122-year history of the NSTU, our members have never faced a more anti-education premier than Stephen McNeil,” union president Liette Doucet said in a press release. “The legislation he introduced [this week] limits teachers’ right to strike, erodes their ability to negotiate a fair contract and prevents them from advocating for reforms to improve learning conditions for their students.”
The historic labour action is happening while the provincial Liberal government tries to rush its Teachers’ Professional Agreement Act through the legislature. The Act, which would impose a new contract on the province’s 9,300 teachers, already went through first and second readings, and was pushed through overcrowded Law Amendments Committee meetings earlier this week.
Around 400 members of the public tried to air their grievances about Bill 75 during the Law Amendments Committee meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, but only some 100 were actually allowed to speak.
Karin Martin, a teacher and parent of school-aged children, was one of Thursday’s presenters.
“I am deeply troubled by the actions of this government,” she said, urging the province to “return to the bargaining table with actual justice in mind,” as she felt “that’s not what we have seen up to this point.”
Tara Arseneau, teacher and parent, presented to the committing by pointing out problems teachers are facing such as large classroom sizes. She said the government is trying to “put a Band-Aid on these issues.”
“It may be easy to read about the issues,” said Arseneau. “It is different when you are actually immersed in the issues.”
“Your committee is not going to work because the committees you have already put in place have not worked.”
Multiple motions to extend time for additional presentations during Thursday’s meeting were shot down by the committee’s Liberal members. Written submissions from presenters are available here.
Debate on Bill 75 has continued overnight and will likely last throughout all of Friday. Meanwhile, thousands of teachers and supporters have been protesting outside Province House overnight, and those demonstrations continue today.
The union’s members initially voted in favour of work stoppage back in October, after two previous tentative agreements with the province were rejected. In December, after last-ditch talks between both sides broke down, teachers began working to rule: only performing contractually-obligated work. In other words, they were no longer responsible for activities such as extracurriculars or field trips.
The province responded by locking students out of school on December 5, claiming work-to-rule made for an unsafe environment. That move came under fire—by students, parents and opposing political parties—and after hundreds protested outside Province House the government quickly back-pedalled.
Hundreds of Nova Scotian students have shown their support for teachers, including participating in walk-outs and rallies. Other students are calling for teachers to end work-to-rule as soon as possible.
A mass rally featuring NSTU members, supporters and any and all available union members is being planned for noon outside of the Legislature. It’s expected to be one of the largest political demonstration in Nova Scotian history.
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This article appears in Feb 16-22, 2017.
Shame. This pointless strike does nothing to change the inevitable. It’s the kids who suffer, yet again. Their greed and indifference shows they are there for the money and benefits. Shame!
The teachers were fine with all the problems in the classroom for each of their previous contracts … because the government gave in to their financial demands.
This fight is really about the obscene retirement bonus and wage increases. Shame on them.
Great role models for their students, who will now grow up thinking if they don’t get their way its expected to throw a temper tantrum and walk off the job.
Where does the money come from for their raises and bonuses besides you and me?
Fuck them.
What a horribly one-sided article.
It’s curious that Boon and Dingwell couldn’t find a single parent or student who has concerns about the teachers actions throughout these negotiations or with this “one-day” strike.
Maybe they’re just lazy or maybe this is all we can expect from J Schools these days.
Greed and indifference? I presume you must be referring to some of our MLAs. The teachers have been pretty clear over this past half year of negotiations. They want classroom conditions and in-classroom supports for students included directly in the contract, where it cannot be back-pedaled [the way “20 means 20” disappears each year after September]. The provincial government, which has multiple reports over these past years, from multiple committees, none of which have really been acted on, wants to establish a committee, which may be able to spend up to $165 per student over two years — enough for two textbooks apiece, perhaps. Not enough for smaller class sizes. Not enough for EPAs.
I voted for my Liberal MLA in our last election. I liked very much what the Liberal candidates, including Mr. McNeil, promised. And I am embarrassed to have done so, seeing how much they value their promises.
Many people will likely scoff at my following statement but it’s not crazy or ridiculous at all…
Teachers outta be paid double or even triple what they are today.. I’m not kiddin or exaggerating.. they’re at least as important as doctors & definitely bureaucrats..
& don’t worry.. CANADA can afford it
I don’t know who has the best argument, the teachers or the government.
What is do know is: the union has failed three times in representing the teachers.
The right thing for Doucette to do is resign…
I used to teach in the HRSB system, and so I’m more than a little biased in my impressions. I’ll say from the outset that I’m supportive of the teacher’s strike. One hundred percent.
That said, articles such as Ms. Dingwell’s do little to foster any sort of balanced view of the issues at hand–and, in my opinion, accomplish precisely the opposite. Not one person with an opposing viewpoint has been interviewed, and no elucidation at all of the McNeil government’s fair–yes, fair–perspective. (This province is a poor one. We all know this. And so either a drastic boost to revenue or a drastic tightening of purse strings is required. Probably both. The question, of course, becomes where that boost comes from or where that tightening needs to happen.) Are our sensibilities so delicate that we can’t even outline the opposing argument? At the very least, it’s quite easy to see why the government is taking a hard line: they/we have no money.
There are two reasonable sides to this issue, in my opinion, and distilling one of them into “all kinds of fucked up” smacks of ignorance and, quite frankly, a panicky reluctance to measure the reality of the situation. The teachers deserve better; they deserve to win the public’s support on the merit of argument, not bluster. Of course, presenting the nuances of the dispute probably stymies the use of “all kinds of fucked up, yo” in the subhead, and the cynic in me suggests that this might have been the genesis of the entire article.
(I’ve read other pieces by Ms. Dingwell–and I know that she can do better, too.)
The journalist seems very biased within this article, good journalism has no opinions and when it does is isnt supposed to be so obvious. A journalists opinion is supposed to be underlying to quietly impose their view on to the reader without them knowing it, to hopefully knudge them to the same conclusion.
Now that I’ve gotten your poor journalism out of the way, has anyone even read what the teachers want?
The teachers are asking for a raise, and if I remember correctly it only adds up to about an extra $1,500 per person, this meaning teachers view one thousand dollars to be more important than a childs quality education.
They are asking for more teachers to solely do the photocopying, taking attendance, and dealing with the automated phone call home about a child’s absence. So apparently being lazy is more important than a child’s quality education.
They kind of mentioned wanting more teachers because the classes are to large which I can vouch that they are, last semester I took Global History and there were 38 students in the class, we hardly had room to sit. This is just about the only thing that they should get, it’s the only thing needed and the only thing that if not taken care of imposes upon a childs quality education.
I am a senior in high school with social anxiety, i have to sit in the cafeteria every day with an obscene amount of screaming children because I can’t sit in the art room like I usually did before work to rule and because of this I now have more stress than a one legged cammel stranded in the desert. On top of this we don’t know what prom and graduation is going to look like because we can’t have any grad meetings, we don’t even know if there will be a prom and formal graduation for that matter. Even if having a graduation ceremony is part of their contract we probably wont be able to practice it more than once. None of the grads have grad clothing, the students that are poor at math and science can’t even get extra help from their teacher at lunch, every senior is stressed beyond belief because work to rule is messing us up so badly. None of this should be acceptable and it’s mainly occurring over $1000 and laziness which is so incredibly wrong.
Students deserve to have their own rights and to be respected, a teacher receiving an extra 1k in their check isnt helping us students. Teachers already make enough money that they can take half over their check every month and save it for three years so they can take a semester off every three years to go somewhere, my principal recently went to Paris, my middle school art teacher went to Italy, I’ve had three other teachers do it also and they all went on trips. My vice principal and her husband who also works at a school own a jeep, a truck, a convertible, and motorcycle, the motorcycle and convertible are usually kept in storage during the winter. And yet my family can barely afford to go to the grocery store! Multiple cars? Half of Nova Scotia can’t afford anything made after 2005 and even then it’s hard to get the money. Teachers need to think about how privileged they are before they go messing up a childs education over 1k.
This paper isn’t published by journalists… lower your standards my unhappy friend.
So you’re back, time to work! You got little and nothing you wanted. Your strike was a failure as was your work-to-rule strategy. You failed. Your union failed. The province and we taxpayers win; again. Stop wasting your time and money. Fools.
It was the teachers own greed that has led to the school system being as fucked up as it is. They just kept signing the contracts with the most money involved.. How embarrassing, the most powerful union in the province got bested by a bunch of bully, helicopter parents so they could have a ‘long time service award’, and 7% over blah, blah years. Now when things are in apparent dire straits, they want the same big raises as well as a few hundred million dollars a year so they all get proteges to do their work for them. Now we’re going to have to pay millions of dollars in legal fees because the teachers have some half baked idea that ‘bargaining in good faith’ means all take, no give. Now, apparently, when the union exec comes out and endorses 3 different contracts, which get voted down, it’s a constitutional right to just keep asking until the government finally gives in.
One thing is for sure, the teachers sure are good at teaching the children how to get what they want. Kind of ironic that this is exactly how the teachers union lost control of their own schools. And people say Karma doesn’t exist.
Teachers have to be the worst role models for our children!!! Teaching them that whining and crying like babies will get you what you want. All the teachers need to grow up!