Talks between the provincial government and Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation resume on Tuesday. (980 CJME file photo)

By CJME News

BACK AT THE TABLE

Moe optimistic as contract talks between teachers, government resume

Apr 16, 2024 | 8:00 AM

As both sides return to the negotiating table, Premier Scott Moe said he feels confident that a deal will be struck this time between the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation and the Government-Trustee Bargaining Committee.

Negotiations are set to resume on Tuesday.

“I have been confident from the very early days that despite some of the discussions that were happening publicly, that we would be able to find a deal with our province’s teachers, and I am increasingly confident on that here today,” the premier told reporters on Monday.

“I’m very positive on talks starting again this week, and it’s my true hope that we will find an agreement sooner rather than later.”

The collective agreement for teachers expired in August.

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After talks reached an impasse, the federation voted in favour of sanctions in October and started imposing them in January. The sanctions have come in the form of single-day and rotating strikes, in addition to the withdrawal of lunch hours and extracurricular supervision.

The sanctions resulted in the cancellation of the Hoopla basketball tournament, which was reduced to a one-day event in March.

At the beginning of April, the union announced it would begin work-to-rule job action, meaning teachers would continue to work as required but would not perform any voluntary services like lunch hour and extracurricular supervision until a deal was reached. That action was suspended on Friday after the announcement that negotiations would resume.

The main issues in the deadlocked negotiations so far have been class size and class complexity, with teachers pushing for a new contract to include increased funding to address the issues. Despite increasing funding in its recent budget and signing a four-year agreement with school boards, the province has so far declined to include those measures in a contract with teachers.

Previously, the federation requested that the matter go to binding arbitration, but the province refused.

The province has more recently said it would be open to signing an accountability framework with teachers on classroom support, and last week the federation said it had been assured the government’s bargaining committee has a renewed mandate heading into Tuesday’s talks.

When asked, Moe didn’t entertain the thought of teachers possibly going on a full strike should talks break down again.

“Our intent and our hope is that talks won’t break down and we’ll find an agreement,” he said.