Education minister and Battlefords MLA Jeremy Cockrill (Julia Lovett-Squires/paNOW)

By Susan McNeil

Teachers refuse arbittration

Teachers have refused arbitration, says Sask. Ed.

Jun 5, 2024 | 5:01 PM

Saskatchewan teachers have refused to send the collective agreement to binding arbitration, said the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education in a news release late on Wednesday.

The government and school trustee bargaining committee met with the STF on June 4 but did not reach any deal or agree on a way to find a deal.

In March, the roles were reversed as the STF asked the province to agree to binding arbitration on the issues of class size and complexity and the province refused.

“Binding arbitration represents the best path to get that done. Our priority is to ensure that instructional time and important student activities are not affected any further,” said Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill in the news release.

He said that many other groups have sat down and reached a deal that is within the government mandate.

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“Today’s refusal by the STF’s senior leadership shows that they are not serious about reaching an agreement and are more interested in planning job action that will interrupt student learning and cancel important milestones in Saskatchewan students’ lives,” read the news release.

Bargaining has been going on for at least a year with teachers saying their primary concern was class size and complexity.

READ MORE: Teachers rejected a tentative deal endorsed by STF leadership

The province agreed to fund that, but would not include it in the collective agreement, which the union then said was needed in order to make sure the funding stayed in place, pointing to past moves by the province to agree to funding program and removing the funding the following year.

Teachers rejected the most recent offer by the province with a 55 per cent nay vote, but a week before were 95 per cent in favour of extending strike or job action into the next school year.

The union said last week that the narrower vote on the most recent deal was just a matter of deciding where the negotiations would happen, not whether they were needed.

Becotte said five days ago that the message is clear, and the votes were just a matter of deciding where the negotiations would happen, not whether they were needed.

“We want to move this process forward without any delays, so if we don’t hear response from the DBC on a path forward to an agreement, then further sanction actions will be announced in short order. As always, we will provide 48-hour notice of any action,” she said.

Sanctions so far have mostly involved teachers withdrawing any extra-curricular work such as supervising lunch hours or after school activities but did include some rotating one-day walk outs.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com