The union representing the province’s 10,000 public school teachers and specialists is holding a strike vote on April 11.
The Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NSTU) announced the news in a media release late Wednesday.
“This was a tough decision. At the end of the day, teachers want to be in classrooms teaching their students,” NSTU president Ryan Lutes said in an interview Wednesday evening.
“So, this is not a step that we take lightly. We believe this is a needed step to make schools better, to work better, for teachers and their students.”
Lutes said the union had two days of conciliation talks with the province a few weeks ago, and the NSTU’s provincial executive authorized the strike vote on Wednesday.
“This is not where we wanted to be. It’s not where teachers or parents or students wanted us to be either,” Lutes said.
Hope this serves as a wake-up call
Citing a lack of meaningful bargaining table discussion and the government’s “unwillingness to engage meaningfully” about the priorities of teachers or students, Lutes said the union believed it had no choice but to hold a strike vote.
“We are still in negotiations and I don’t want to negotiate everything in the media of course,” Lutes said. “But we’ve been advocating for many of these priorities before collective bargaining started. For two years. Things like improving learning conditions for kids and working conditions for teachers.”
Increasing workload, violence in schools, and the teacher retention and recruitment crisis are also among the issues impacting the province’s teachers, Lutes said. He pointed to a recent NSTU survey that found 84% of teacher respondents had considered quitting the profession in the last five years.
“At the end of the day, teachers want to provide amazing levels of education for kids,” Lutes said. “And right now they can’t do that based on the constraints in the system.”
Stressing that the union is hoping to avoid a strike, Lutes reiterated his messaging to those who’d be most significantly impacted.
“This isn’t a decision that we came to lightly. This is a decision that we understand is going to have ramifications on teachers, students, and their families. We get that,” he said.
“The hope is that this serves as a wake up call to government to come to the table to put some real time, effort, into coming up with some meaningful solutions at the bargaining table.”
Lutes, the government hung up the phone… good luck, no sympathy for this crowd. I don’t your group would win a popularity contest; upsetting parents’ plans to care for their kids during normal school hours is your only hope.