Beautiful Plains agreement could be ‘turning point’

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This article was published 27/02/2021 (2041 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Beautiful Plains School Division teachers are facing a retroactive salary bump after their association unanimously ratified a new two-year collective agreement on Thursday, which could also pave the way for similar negotiations in the province.

The retroactive salary on the two-year agreement, that expired on June 30, 2020, includes a 1.6 per cent salary increase for the 2018-19 year and a 1.4 per cent increase for the 2019-20 year, according to Beautiful Plains School Division superintendent Jason Young.

Upon completion of payment for the 2019-20 year, all steps on their salary grid will increase by $500. The agreement also gives substitute instructors a three per cent bump at signing.

“We began negotiating with our local association in December,” Young said Friday, “And I would say that local negotiation process was maybe not typically what you would see. It was really built on being realistic and respectful and trustworthy.”

Manitoba Teachers’ Society president James Bedford praised Beautiful Plains members for their negotiating tactics, stating in a news release issued Friday that this marks “a turning point for collective agreements” after the Public Services Sustainability Act (Bill 28) was passed.

Originally introduced by the province in 2017, Bill 28 would have frozen the wages of more than 100,000 public sector workers if it was proclaimed into law.

Although a judge deemed Bill 28 unconstitutional in June 2020, Manitoba Teachers’ Society vice-president Nathan Martindale told the Sun its influence was still felt across Manitoba, with many employers following the government’s direction to freeze wages over the last couple of years.

“Bill 28 had that chilling effect on bargaining, even after it was ruled unconstitutional in the courts,” he said Friday. “So this is the first time that an agreement has been reached, at the collective bargaining table, between the teachers and a school board.”

However, Beautiful Plains wasn’t the first division to break free from Bill 28.

Winnipeg’s Louis Riel School Division decided to buck this trend in April, after its arbitration board issued the local teachers’ association a unanimous award that retroactively increased salaries 1.6 per cent in 2018-19 and 1.4 per cent 2019-20.

Earlier this month, the Pembina Trails School Division also reached a similar agreement, with both decisions proving influential to Neepawa-area teachers and administrators during their round of negotiations.

“We reviewed the Louis Riel arbitration award that was established by the arbitrator,” said Young. “And we had two follow-up meetings in January and we had an agreement in principle with our local association on Jan. 27.”

However, Martindale reminded the Sun that what sets Beautiful Plains’ agreement apart is that the division and teachers’ association were able to successfully negotiate without the need for arbitration, unlike Louis Riel and Pembina Trails.

“This is a pretty big deal for all of us here at (The Manitoba Teachers’ Society) and across the province,” he said. “Because it shows that what we’ve been doing for decades works: the employer and the employees sitting down and bargaining at the negotiations table.”

As for Beautiful Plains, Young said its board of trustees still has to approve this new collective agreement, which will hopefully happen during one of their March meetings.

Moving forward, Martindale hopes that this collective agreement from Beautiful Plains shows other school divisions what they can accomplish through free and open collective bargaining, as opposed to relying on arbitration.

“So there should be nothing stopping other divisions and other associations coming together at the negotiations table and coming to an agreement,” he said.

The Beautiful Plains School Division is based out of Neepawa and manages 15 institutions in that part of the Westman region.

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