Saskatchewan’s teachers have done what seemed to be inevitable, and imposed sanctions in their labour impasse with the provincial government.
Sanction, of course, is just a fancy word for job action. They aren’t on strike, and they’re still going to show up to work each day and teach kids and quality education. But they won’t be there more than 15 minutes before the start of the school day, and they won’t stay more than 15 minutes after school.
It also means they won’t be doing the extracurricular activities that so many of them undertake, such as clubs and sports.
The timing of these “sanctions” was tough, as this is the time of year in which many clubs are in high gear and sports teams are at their peak. The showcase for high school sports in Saskatchewan is the Hoopla provincial basketball tournament, which was set to be cancelled if the sanctions continued.
But don’t blame the teachers for this taking job action.
They’re without a contract for this school year. Negotiations with the provincial government stalled. And it’s not like they get paid an incredible wage to begin with.
Most come to school more than 15 minutes in advance, and stay much later than 15 minutes. They aren’t forced to do that; they do it by choice. They’re often grading papers and marking tests in the evening. They aren’t forced to do that, they do that because they care.
And those extracurricular activities – clubs, school productions, sports teams and more – are not required as part of their job. That’s something they do because they want to, because they care. It’s not in their contract that they have to sacrifice evenings and weekends to coach basketball and volleyball and travel throughout the province with kids; they do it because they see the value in it for kids.
So many of the experiences that enrich the elementary and high school years of students happen because teachers give of their time. Do they get a lot out of it as well? Of course they do. They love coaching teams and directing musicals and leading clubs. If they didn’t, they would find something else to do in their spare time.
But their biggest reason for doing it is they love kids.
Education Minister Gordon Wyant accused the teachers union of walking out on kids. Wyant’s a bright guy and a tremendous politician, but that’s not going to go down as one of his finer moments.
All it did was further aggravate teachers and anger those who support teachers.
Don’t criticize the teachers for withdrawing services, while still showing up to do their job. They’re not going “above and beyond” during a labour dispute, but they aren’t going out on strike, either. We’ve seen reductions of services by teachers before during labour disputes; this isn’t anything new. (It is hard to believe that people were confused what these sanctions entailed, given that this has happened before).
Maybe it would help their cause if they went out on strike and forced classes to be cancelled for a few days or a week or two. That might accelerate the bargaining process and lead to a quicker resolution.
But as we often see in strike situations, it takes a long time for them to make back the money they lose during a strike.
So instead teachers have opted to go with sanctions. It’s a tough situation for everyone involved, but remember: they haven’t walked out on kids, and they’re still showing up to work every day.
