Teachers, GN go back to wage talks

MICHAELA RODRIGUE

IQALUIT — The Federation of Nunavut Teachers and the Nunavut government are about to return to the bargaining table to take another stab at a new collective agreement.

Some teachers say more of their colleagues will be lured away from Nunavut’s schools to work at other jobs if their wage and benefit packages aren’t improved.

“There are some teachers who, since the cutbacks, have had serious financial problems. There are people leaving,” said Dick Smith, a teacher at Inuksuk High School. “We lost a very good Inuk teacher here a few years ago because she basically couldn’t afford to stay.”

Two weeks ago, teachers across Nunavut rejected a tentative three-year wage deal that included an 8.5-per-cent pay increase over three years.

The deal was turned down by 68 per cent of FNT members who cast ballots.

That rejection was labelled as a vote of non-confidence in the union by Iqaluit teacher John Maurice. Maurice is now calling for the establishment of a new FNT executive and a new bargaining strategy.

But this week, teachers at Iqaluit’s Inuksuk High School rejected Maurice’s interpretation of the vote.

“I’ve not been hearing that from staff,” said Dick Smith, a teacher at Inuksuk High School.

“If members choose to reject, that just says go back and do what you can do. That doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t have confidence in negotiators.”

Poor working conditions

Teachers did describe deteriorating working conditions, which include high student-teacher ratios, few prepared teaching materials, and little or no class preparation time.

They say that when those working conditions aren’t acknowledged or compensated, low morale sets in.

“Generally there’s no respect for the job teachers do. The attitude towards teachers is that they’re out for what they can get,” said Alison Lee, another teacher at Inuksuk.

“There are serious difficulties teaching here, and people really try to deal with them and it’s just never acknowledged.”

The teachers said they’ve always accepted the different and sometimes more difficult working conditions of the North. But richer benefit packages in the past made the workload easier to handle.

“Teachers who were working here 10 years ago were working the same hours and the same effort and they accepted it because the benefit packages made it worthwhile,” said teacher Sharon Sutherland.

“They dealt with the isolation and the long, long hours, but they had a nice house that was government subsidized. They had maybe one break a year.”

In 1996 the government of the Northwest Territories cut teachers’ wage scales by 6.25 per cent. Teachers, and other government employees have also lost vacation travel assistance and other valuable benefits.

The government has alsp put a cap on ultimate removal assistance — an amount of money is given to move a teacher out of the territory.

Now teachers say they are often forced to find their own rental housing in Nunavut’s expensive private market. They predict that fewer and fewer qualified teachers will choose to come North, now that many teaching jobs are opening up in other parts of the country.

Inuit teachers leaving

Nunavut-trained teachers are also being lured away to high-paying jobs with lucrative benefits packages in the government and Inuit organizations.

“If you consider Inuit teachers, as a group they’re probably the best educated, best trained group of Inuit in Nunavut. They don’t have to stay in teaching. They can go anywhere,” Smith said.

“They’re being openly recruited.,” echoed Mary Nyland, the union representative at Inuksuk.

The result, the teachers said, is high turnover in the classroom with little continuity for students.

“They need the Inuit people and the people that live here to be educated in a way that they can take on the positions of responsibility in the government,” Lee said.

To turn the tide, teachers are calling on the government to give them reason for hope and a reason to remain in their chosen profession.

“No one is expecting that we’re going to get full removal and full VTAs and a 10 per cent increase. It’s obvious the Nunavut government has many pressing issues it’s got to face,” Smith said, but he and other teachers said the government needs to make some changes to the benefits package.

“They’ve got to start looking at improving the package. It’s not going to happen in one year but they’ve got to look at improving it.” While they wait for those improvements to come, Smith and other teachers say the union should only agree to one-year collective agreements, not three.

Government and teacher negotiators are scheduled to return to the bargaining table Feb. 18-21.