Alberta teachers are on the precipice of a provincewide strike with an Oct. 6 deadline to reach a deal.
Teachers say they are underpaid for the workload they bear, and burning out from trying to meet the growing and varied needs of students.
The Alberta government says it’s staring down a $6.5-billion deficit this year, and that its standing offer — voted down by teachers last May — of a 12 per cent general wage increase is fair and generous.
The finance ministry says officials are considering the most recent offer from the teachers’ association, which arrived on Wednesday.
But how does Alberta teacher compensation stack up against their colleagues’ pay across the country? And what else do governments consider when balancing fair wages with managing the public purse?
“The Alberta advantage was that Alberta teachers made the most in all of Canada,” Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) president Jason Schilling said in an interview in early September. “But that’s just simply not the truth anymore.”
Statistics Canada has published data on how teacher pay compares across Canada. However, the most recent comparisons available are from 2022-23.
Data from that year shows Alberta primary and secondary teacher salaries are slightly above national averages.
However, since then, teachers in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan have signed new contracts awarding wage increases.
Region needs and pressures also vary. StatsCan shows educators’ starting and maximum salaries in the Northwest Territories, where teacher recruitment is a challenge, were much higher than in the 10 provinces. Salaries lagged the national average in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.
Darryl Hunter is a University of Alberta education policy studies professor and former education civil servant for the governments of Saskatchewan, Ontario, and B.C.
He says Statistics Canada comparisons on teacher pay are an important source for provinces when considering salaries. He says the most recent available data shows Alberta sitting in the middle of that range.
However, he said governments have to consider many more factors, including the cost of living and the proportion of teachers in a province who live in places that are more affordable.
A province’s tax regime also matters, as workers in provinces like Alberta will pay lower sales and income taxes, and take home more pay, Hunter said.
Governments also have to consider population growth, which affects the number of students and the supply of teachers.
“I know of no provincial government that is actively looking to create instability in the province,” Hunter said.
Hunter says the public should avoid the temptation to reduce salary comparisons to a simple inter-provincial ranking of averages.
CBC News asked the teachers’ association and the Alberta government to share the data they are considering to make their case at the bargaining table and to the public.
The ATA shared economic data and calculations. The government did not share any data, but did not dispute the accuracy of the ATA’s data.
The Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association (TEBA), which is made up of government representatives and school trustees, bargains with teachers on behalf of all public, Catholic and francophone school boards.
Teacher salary grids offer different levels of compensation based on how many years of post-secondary education the teacher has, and the number of years of work experience.
The finance minister’s office and ATA both focus on salary grids from B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario for a teacher with five years of post-secondary education. These numbers are drawn from active collective agreement documents for each teacher group.
Among those salary grids, Alberta teachers have the second-lowest starting wages of the provinces, with new Ontario teachers earning lower wages.
At the top of the pay scale, Alberta teachers have the second-lowest wages, ahead only of B.C.
Schilling says the lag at the low end of the scale is a concern, because new teachers shouldn’t have to take second jobs to pay their bills and student loan costs.
He says around 16,000 of the province’s 51,000 public, Catholic and francophone teachers are at the top of the grid, and they deserve pay that reflects their expertise.
Schilling said it’s escalating costs that are driving teachers to ask for more.
The demands of the job are also escalating, which merits more pay, he said.
Teacher collective agreements in the other four comparator provinces have come closer to matching the rising inflation. In Alberta, he said teacher wages rose by 3.8 per cent over six years while the consumer price index — a measure of rising costs for basic needs — jumped by nearly 21 per cent.
Teacher pay also trails the average Alberta worker’s pay increases since 2019, Schilling said.
“I know that government will often like to spin it that teachers are being greedy,” he said. “They’re asking for more money, but they actually just want to keep up with inflation and make up for lost inflation over the many years that they took zeros.”
Schilling has declined to say what salary increases teachers would accept, adding that discussion belongs at the bargaining table.
When talks broke down between the ATA and TEBA in late August, the government said the ATA rejected an offer to add 1,000 more teaching positions to the K-12 system each year for three years.
The association said they couldn’t ask teachers to vote on a wage offer members had already rejected.
The contract dispute comes as provincially funded employers have been trying to renew deals with nearly 250,000 Alberta public sector workers, including post-secondary employees, nurses and other health-care workers and provincial civil servants.
Although the nuances of each offer have varied, some unions have struck agreements that include a general wage increase of 12 per cent raises over four years.
Alberta’s finance minister says the last offer to teachers would have given 95 per cent of them more than 12 per cent wage increases, based on market adjustments.
Last Wednesday, Premier Danielle Smith told reporters in Calgary provincial coffers are tapped out.
“That’s all there is for wage increases, because we know that there are trade-offs and sacrifices, and we’re just not prepared to leave ourselves short so that we cannot fill some of those gaps in hiring more bodies.”
Schilling rejects the premier’s characterisation of the choice between higher teacher salaries or more school staff, saying schools will be unable to attract more staff without fair pay.
In an interview with CBC News on Sept. 8, Finance Minister Nate Horner said the government wants more clarity on what wage increase would satisfy teachers.
Horner said Alberta can’t afford to be an outlier in teacher pay.
“We think [the offer] keeps teachers strongly within the Ontario-west Canadian market,” he said. “Frankly, we don’t have the retention issues with teachers that we do in other sectors, [and] some other provinces.”
The cost over four years of TEBA’s last offer to teachers is $2.3 billion, he said.
Both the association and TEBA have agreed in principle to return to the bargaining table, but the parties said Friday no meeting dates have been set.
