Alberta labour leaders gauge interest in general strike after suspension of teachers' bargaining rights

Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) chairperson Gil McGowan says unions testament encourage workers incensed by the provincial regime’s hiatus of bargaining rights to offer for recall campaigns and prepare for a possible general strike.

“We will begin the process of organizing towards a potential general strike in Alberta,” McGowan told supporters and media gathered at Ironworkers Hall in Edmonton on Wednesday.

In response to questions, McGowan said the labour movement needs more time to speak with union leaders and non-unionized workers about the appetite and logistics of staging a general strike, in which workers across multiple sectors of the economy would refuse to work.

“We are not going to pull the pin today, but we are going to start the journey,” McGowan said.

On Monday, the Alberta government introduced and passed the Back to School Act in one sitting day of the legislature to force 51,000 public, Catholic and francophone school teachers back to work.

Teachers had been on strike since Oct. 6 over pay that has slipped below inflation, and classroom conditions they say are untenable. Employers locked teachers out on Oct. 9.

Teachers and students returned to classrooms Wednesday after the legislation imposed a new contract on them that almost 90 per cent of educators had voted to reject last month.

The Back to School Act uses the notwithstanding clause to suspend teachers’ rights to collectively bargain, preventing the Alberta Teachers’ Association from challenging it in court. It also halts any potential teacher strikes before September 2028 by preventing teachers from bargaining local matters with their school boards.

Canadian Labour Congress president Bea Bruske told the rally crowd that workers across the country will support their Alberta colleagues.

“When one provincial government gets away with trumping rights and freedoms, every single worker is at risk,” Bruske said.

Why Alberta won’t immediately see a general strike

In 2022, When Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government introduced a bill to declare a planned strike by education support workers illegal, and invoked the notwithstanding clause to try and prevent it, the workers walked off the job anyway.

Under a threat of more widespread strikes and protest, the Ontario government moved to repeal the bill four days later.

Ottawa labour lawyer Malini Vijaykumar said McGowan is likely looking at the Ontario labour movement’s successful threat and hoping that’s enough to get the Alberta government to change course.

“This is the kind of threat that you have to call pretty soon,” she said. “You can't be bluffing about a general strike for weeks on end. But I think it is fair to ... At least for a few days, to be gauging the population's temperature on this.”

If labour leaders want to stage a potentially illegal walkout, they need to act quickly while they have worker and public support, Vijaykumar said.

McGowan said any general strike would need to involve enough workers so that institutional systems would be too overwhelmed to take punitive action.

There are 24 unions belonging to the AFL, which have a collective 175,000 members. Labour groups have also co-ordinated a larger collective called the Common Front, which earlier agreed to a solidarity pact saying an attack on some workers' rights is an attack on all workers’ rights. McGowan is the chair of that coalition.

He said on Wednesday their goal is to topple the United Conservative Party government. Leaders will ask workers to get involved with several recall campaigns underway to unseat UCP MLAs.

“If they won’t shrink the size of their classroom, we will shrink the size of their caucus,” McGowan said.

A group called AB Resistance is helping citizens who are organizing the recall campaigns, and Elections Alberta recently approved a recall campaign to collect signatures from residents of the Calgary-Bow riding in a grassroots attempt to recall Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides.

McGowan said he also encourages workers to volunteer with a campaign to collect signatures to demand the government hold a referendum on ceasing public funding of private schools in Alberta.

He asked people interested in the movement to text the word “resist” to 55255.

Finance Minister Nate Horner, who introduced the Back to School Act, said he doesn’t find the AFL’s plans worrisome.

“It sounds like a plan to make a plan,” he said. “I didn't hear much concrete there. It sounds like they're gonna do some data-mining, that this is somehow politically driven.”

Horner said no public sector workers are currently in a legal strike position, and the labour relations board will enforce penalties against individuals and organizations for illegal strike action. Some health-care worker unions are still without contracts and are poised to bargain or take a strike vote.

“We all have enough problems in this province already,” Horner said. “No one wants to see health care be made slower.”

Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction Minister Dale Nally told reporters that he believes a left-wing group is “weaponizing” the recall legislation his government introduced to try and force an early general election. The next fixed election date is Oct. 18, 2027.

The UCP has a narrow majority in the legislature, holding 47 of 87 seats. There are 38 NDP MLAs and two independents. The Opposition and independents all voted against the Back to School Act at each stage.

“I don't think Albertans want another general election this soon,” Nally said. “At the end of the day, this is democracy. Sometimes it's messy.”

Provincial affairs reporter

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