MONTREAL — “We will not be intimidated and ruled by threats that attempt to force us back to work,” Alberta Teachers Association President Jason Schilling told an Oct. 17 news conference, referring to pressure by the government to compel them to abandon their fight against overcrowded classrooms, the decline of public education and for wages teachers can live on. Teachers “have no choice but to continue strike action” they began 11 days earlier, he said.
Schilling was responding to United Conservative Party Premier Danielle Smith’s demand the 51,000 teachers in Alberta end their strike and rely instead on negotiations under a government-appointed mediator. Smith is threatening to impose back-to-work strikebreaking legislation if the union refuses.
On Oct. 16, more than 8,000 teachers, parents, students and other strike supporters held a rally in Edmonton, outside a meeting where Smith addressed the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce. Over 20,000 took part in rallies the day before the strike began in Calgary and Edmonton, as well many smaller cities and towns.
Putting over 30 students in a class, sometimes 50 or 60, as a norm is “chaos, not education,” Medeana Moussa told the Edmonton rally, speaking on behalf of Support Our Students Alberta.
‘We’re at a breaking point’
“We’re at a breaking point. We’re overworked, there are too many kids,” Lee Hrycun, a high school teacher in Edmonton, told CBC News at a rally there. “If they just force us back, I don’t know … how many of my colleagues would go back.”
Premier Smith insists that the government won’t negotiate with teachers over class sizes. The Alberta government has refused to divulge average class sizes since 2019. “Since then, class sizes have ballooned,” the union, whose members know the truth firsthand, says.
Prior to the strike hundreds of high school students walked out of school to hold rallies supporting the teachers. Student and parent participation is a notable feature of all the pro-union rallies.
One recent poll shows that 84% of people in Alberta agree with the teachers that class sizes are too big. The strike marks the first time all of Alberta’s public, Catholic and French- language schoolteachers have walked off the job together. Even though they’re on strike, teachers union officials decided not to set up picket lines at schools. They argue that in public service jobs, unlike in industry, “there is no ‘production’ to shut down by means of a picket line.”
‘Unions must defend right to strike’
But in 2022 picket lines that forced hundreds of Ontario schools to shut down were decisive in mobilizing support for the strike of 55,000 education support workers, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. They were able to defy back-to-work legislation with broad support from the labor movement across the country, forcing Premier Doug Ford’s Ontario government to withdraw its anti-strike law.
“The Alberta government’s attempt to force the teachers back to work without an agreement continues the capitalist rulers’ assault on the right to strike across Canada,” Philippe Tessier, Communist League candidate for mayor of Saint Leonard, a borough in Montreal, told the Militant Oct. 19.
Tessier, a rail conductor at Canadian National, was among the 10,000 striking rail workers forced back to work in August 2024.
“Ottawa did the same to postal workers last winter, as well as against port workers, as they did to us,” he said.
“They also tried to force 10,000 striking Air Canada flight attendants to return to work in August. However, they defied the government’s back-to-work order, kept their picket lines up and made gains. Their courageous fight inspired workers across the country.
“The unions need to organize the entire labor movement to stand up to the capitalist rulers’ attack on the right to strike, like they did in Ontario,” Tessier said. “And to build solidarity with the Alberta teachers and the tens of thousands of postal and British Columbia government workers currently on strike for a living wage, against government cutbacks and for safety on the job.”
Teachers are planning a mass rally Oct. 23 for the opening of the Alberta Legislature.