Poisoning Labour Relations

In the early hours of October 28, the Alberta government imposed an end to a province-wide teachers’ strike. Back-to-work legislation is not uncommon, especially when public opinion about a strike is running against the government. What sets Alberta’s Back to School Act apart is that the government imposed its final offer — one that 89.5% of teachers had previously rejected — and used the notwithstanding clause of the charter to strip teachers of their constitutional rights to bargain and to strike.

Public opinion overwhelmingly swung against these actions, and for a few days after the act passed, it felt like labour might escalate into a broader fightback. That wider push back has not yet materialized, though grassroots activists are organizing more than a dozen recall petitions against United Conservative Party (UCP) MLAs in response to the government’s handling of the teachers’ strike.

With teachers back in the classroom and schools operating as usual, it is important to see the Back to School Act in its broader context and talk about the consequences of its passage on labour relations in Alberta and Canada. The act is part of an ongoing strategy of government interference in public-sector bargaining, and it is a notable escalation of the lengths governments are prepared to go.

A six-year effort

The Back to School Act is the culmination of a six-year effort by the UCP to render public-sector bargaining pointless for workers. In 2019, the Public Sector Employers Act gave the government the power to set secret and binding bargaining mandates for notionally independent government agencies, boards and commissions, in this case, the School Boards and their elected Trustees. While the union and employer sat at the table, it was really the government pulling the strings behind the scenes, hiding behind their secret mandates. The Parkland Institute report, A Thumb on the Scale, has shown that the public-sector secret mandates have made bargaining more tense, resulting in more escalation, such as strikes and lockouts. Still, the government has benefited from this new tactic with patterns of wage freezes and, more recently, increases far below the rate of inflation.

Fast forward to 2025, and Alberta teachers, concerned about a 25% loss of purchasing power over the past decade, spiralling class sizes and increasingly complex classrooms, rejected the government’s last offer and went on strike. The government proposed enhanced mediation to end the lockout and strike, but only if classroom sizes and complexity were excluded from mediation. The government also chose not to use available alternatives such as continuing to bargain, arbitration, a disputes inquiry board or a public emergency tribunal. Instead, the government dug in on its position and immediately began musing about back-to-work legislation.

The Back to School Act clearly violates Alberta teachers’ charter rights to a meaningful bargaining process and to strike in pursuit of fair compensation and working conditions. Ordering an end to the strike on the surface violates teachers’ rights to associate, but the courts have often given governments latitude when ending disputes. However, imposing contract provisions is seen much more negatively by the courts. The government also stopped the next stage of bargaining on local issues with individual school boards before it even began. This pre-emptive cancellation of bargaining is most certainly unconstitutional and is an unprecedented interference with bargaining rights.

Normally, workers subjected to this kind of interference could file a charter challenge to have imposed provisions struck down, as teachers in BC did in 2018. By using the notwithstanding clause, the UCP has foreclosed court challenges that could undo the legislation and brought in punishing fines designed to force teachers back into the classroom with limited resistance or recourse.

For public-sector workers, the government’s message is that their only choice will be to take what they are offered, voluntarily or through force — and their constitutional rights be damned. Also, that other workers and unions in the province will also face penalties if they resist or encourage workers to resist such legislation despite their charter rights as well. This behaviour fundamentally undermines the industrial-relations system Canada has had since the Second World War, where workers' right to strike in pursuit of their interests is guaranteed, but its exercise is legislatively constrained to avoid ongoing economic disruption.

In 2022, Ontario’s Conservative government attempted a similar measure, pre-emptively banning a strike by educational assistants using the notwithstanding clause. Public opposition and a fierce blowback from the province’s labour movement led to a hasty retreat on the bill and a return to the bargaining table, where a fair deal was struck. Ontarians’ response sent a clear message that invoking the notwithstanding clause was a step too far. The lack of a commensurate reaction in Alberta means that the notwithstanding clause is back in governments’ tool kits for dealing with labour disputes. And provincial governments have demonstrated themselves quite adept at learning from one another.

The government’s gamble

The UCP’s political calculus is that workers and their unions will not have the courage or the finances to resist this new law and, consequently, collective bargaining will be replaced with collective begging. It is too soon to tell if the government’s gamble will pay off.

What is clear is that the Back to School Act does not resolve the underlying issues of this strike, and in fact will create even bigger problems down the road. Teachers remain underpaid, while class sizes and complexity are growing worse for teachers and students. Conflict over this will likely continue. Workers without the option of legal strikes tend to turn to things like presenteeism/absenteeism, withdrawal of voluntary work (e.g., running extracurricular activities), periodic wildcat strikes, and quitting. How Alberta plans to hire 3,000 new teachers and retain the current ones in a poisoned work environment is unclear.

The stakes are high, not just for Alberta teachers and public-sector workers, but for all workers in Canada. Should the UCP get away with this brazen and punitive attack, it may establish a precedent for other governments to wield a similar sledgehammer against the rights of public servants, which could extend to private-sector workers as well. If unchecked, it could lead to the dismantling of labour relations as we know it, and the stability it has provided for many decades.