STF says lack of collective bargaining progress “frustrating”

Saskatchewan teachers are no closer to a new contract despite months of bargaining.

The government trustee bargaining committee met with the teacher bargaining committee to negotiate for the 10th time on Wednesday, with a lack of results.

“It was a frustrating day. There was very little progress made on anything,” said Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) president Patrick Maze.

The STF has said it will not accept a collective agreement that does not address class size and composition issues.

The provincial government said it’s committed to addressing and solving the issue but doesn’t agree the solution should come in the form of a blanket approach with hard caps on class sizes in a collective agreement.

Instead, a committee was formed to find ways to fix Saskatchewan’s classrooms.

In Wednesday’s update, the province said the issue has been addressed outside of the bargaining process, through the committee.

The STF has indicated it will not be a part of the committee.

Maze claimed the committee is stacked in the government’s favour with five of its nine members from the government’s side of the bargaining table. He said the STF asked for further explanations about how committee members were being selected.

Maze is concerned that only one teacher, who can’t be from the teacher bargaining team, is on the committee along with only one parent.

“Their side had nothing to say. They simply directed us to the minister’s office for further information. From our perspective, it kind of called into question their authority to even negotiate across the table from us,” said Maze.

Maze said both sides are respectful around the table but expressed frustration in not making any progress, although he would not call the current situation an impasse.

“I think we’re getting to a point where we’re starting to wonder whether negotiations are being successful but at the same point, time will tell,” said Maze.

“We continue to be hopeful that good faith negotiations will result in a good contract for both sides,” Education Minister Gord Wyant said shortly after the bargaining positions were released.

Wyant said he’s not at the bargaining table, so he couldn’t say what the tone is. But he noted that other people have told him there are productive conversations happening.

When asked whether the government is at all willing to move on its offer, Wyant maintained that the offer from the province is a good one.

“I think it’s a pretty good offer that we put on the table to the teachers. It’s been consistent with a number of other offers that we’ve made at other tables,” he said.

Wyant said there are always ways to continue to negotiate, and to find different ways to get to a negotiated settlement.

As for the risk of a teachers strike coming out of this, Wyant said that neither party has indicated that it’s prepared to declare an impasse and there haven’t been any conversations about a strike at this time.

— With files from 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick