How Alberta Teachers Are Winning the Public Opinion Battle

As a strike by about 51,000 teachers enters its second week, the Alberta Teachers’ Association is winning the fight for public support.

An Angus Reid poll released Tuesday found that 58 per cent of Albertans’ sympathies are with the teachers, compared with 21 per cent who side with the government.

The strike began Oct. 6 after Alberta Teachers’ Association members overwhelmingly rejected the government’s last offer. Key issues in bargaining have been wages, class sizes and classroom support.

The poll found the public supports the demand for smaller classes and higher pay. “Four-in-five (84 per cent) believe there are ‘too many kids’ in Alberta public school classes, while most (56 per cent) disagree that teachers are paid enough as it stands,” the study found.

There’s already been a large show of public support for teachers. On Oct. 5, about 18,000 people gathered for a rally at the Alberta legislature to support teachers.

Teachers, who are not receiving strike pay or picketing, have also been supported by people who gathered at Kinsmen Sports Centre to walk along the Walterdale Bridge in Edmonton.

Jason Foster, a labour relations and human resources professor at Athabasca University and the director of the Parkland Institute, told The Tyee both parties are “still very far apart.”

“The Alberta government has yet to figure out that the teachers are quite serious about their priorities,” Foster said.

There was a bargaining session Tuesday.

“I think that’s a hopeful sign,” Foster said. “But I’m still not making any predictions of a quick resolution.”

Susan Cake also teaches labour relations and human resources at Athabasca University. She’s published research on the communications efforts of public sector unions and was a federal New Democratic Party candidate in the last federal election.

Cake said that she and her colleagues predicted that negotiations would escalate to a strike.

“When it’s so advertently public, they have commercials running, they have public campaigns, that’s when we get a sense that things at the table are not working,” Cake said. “Both sides are not finding the leverage that they think they need and then they think that they can get it more with the public.”

Foster said both parties are attempting to sway public opinion, trying to get people to understand their position and frame the other as unreasonable. That’s typical for public sector bargaining, he added.

“I think right now public opinion is on the side of teachers,” Foster explained. “The government is working very hard to try and push that public opinion back towards their direction.”

“A lot of what they’re doing and what they’re trying to communicate in an attempt to do that, for the moment, I don’t see it working. I don’t think that the public is particularly buying what the government is trying to sell them.”

Cake said the province has experience in public communications about education disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic. “They generally know what families might need and the systems that exist for them and then how to pull those levers.”

The government’s support for families being affected by the strike will likely get them some good will, Cake said. Currently, the government is providing families with $30 per day per student 12 and under and $60 per instructional day per older student.

It’s also providing online education resources, which have drawn criticism.

“For the teachers, they’re trying to get out their message about ‘It’s not just wages,’ and essentially that they’ve been holding together a system that has been falling apart around them,” Cake explained. “It’s really about which one of them is going to hit properly with the public.”

Speaking before the Angus Reid poll was released, Cake agreed with Foster that the teachers’ messaging is resonating with the public.

The Alberta Teachers’ Association rallies saw “a much broader scope of people who were there, many of them there defending public education,” Foster said.

He said that may shift as the strike goes on, but it will largely depend on who the public blames for the strike. So far, the public largely seems to be putting the blame on the province.

But that may shift as the strike continues. Both parents and teachers may get fatigued with a long strike, Foster said.

“It’s pretty standard for union members [to] come into the beginning and feel really motivated, support it, and then as the strike goes on, it gets harder to maintain,” Cake said. “Especially because you’re not having paycheques come in.”

“Right now I think a lot of parents understand what the ATA is saying just because they see the conditions, they know how many kids tend to be in their class, then if their child is struggling, they know that they have a pretty steep climb to get their child some help.”

The Tyee requested comment from the province on the public’s concerns and opinion.

It provided a statement that said “parents want their children learning in classrooms today — not a week from now and not a month from now.”

“Alberta’s government is fully engaged at the bargaining table and remains committed to reaching a fair and reasonable agreement that gets students back to class as soon as possible.”

Cake said the province’s messaging may change as the strike continues and it could bring in back-to-work legislation when the legislature resumes Oct. 23.

But this may not land well with the public if the issues at the heart of the labour dispute are not resolved, she said.

Foster said public opinion can play a huge role in how bargaining plays out. In the private sector, it’s typically economic pressure that encourages the parties to reach a deal.

For the public sector, public opinion tends to be a bigger incentive for both parties.

“If public opinion is turning against the government, if [the public] is blaming the government for this bad situation, for the government, they’re going to want to get out of it as quickly as possible,” Foster said.

Cake is also the parent of a child in Grade 2. She’s hoping the strike doesn’t carry on for too long but wants to see the conditions of classrooms improve. Until then, she says, she’s being patient with herself and her kids.