How many strikes before the Conservatives are out?

Teachers prepare to walk off the job to address worsening conditions in Alberta classes

It’s the last week of school and I’m channeling all of my kid’s excitement about the impending summer break. The big question now is how long will that summer break be?

Alberta teachers voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action. They now have 120 days to initiate a strike, IF they can’t reach a deal with the government.

How do you know when teachers have had enough? When 95% of them signal their willingness to walk off the job. Over the last fifty years, teachers have only gone on strike a handful of times. As I was reading about teacher strike history, I was a little surprised to see how consistent teacher’s requests of the government were. I was less surprised about how the conservative governments responded.

The 1980 Calgary strike lasted 122 days (including 42 days of classroom time). Teachers at the time were asking for better working conditions and more prep time. Eventually the government ordered them back to work. They got a pay increase, but nothing is done about working conditions and prep time.

In 1988, teachers walked off the job for 5 weeks. Once again teachers raised concerns about class sizes, resources, and working conditions. Once again, the government gave them a pay increase and did nothing about the other issues raised.

The 2002 strike was sparked by a Conservative government that reneged on additional education funding promises they made to teachers. To settle the strike, the government pays a year of teacher’s unfunded pension liability, and they do the modern Conservative equivalent of nothing. They strike a committee.

The Alberta Commission on Learning made 95 recommendations. They might as well have made none for how much progress has been made on those recommendations. We still don’t have full-day kindergarten, we don’t have province-wide guidelines for average class sizes, we don’t have caps on school fees, we don’t have a strategy to ensure that 90% of students complete high school within four years. I could go on and on because there are dozens of recommendations that successive Conservative governments have made no attempts to address.

Twenty years have passed since the Commission on Learning issued its report and in that time classroom conditions have slowly degraded. Over four years, an NDP government built or modernized 244 schools. Since taking office six years ago, the UCP have managed about half that. Our classrooms are overcrowded because not enough schools have been built, it’s as simple as that.

So how long will summer break be? Well, that’s up to the government. They have two months to hammer out a deal and prevent the disruption for families that comes when teachers are forced to walk off the job. Teachers have been crystal clear, they want classroom sizes addressed, they want additional supports for complex learners, and they want a wage increase that keeps pace with inflation.

The real question is will the UCP come to the table with an offer to address teachers concerns or will they fumble this ball the same way they’ve fumbled building the schools we need?

cover photo credit- The progress report, 2025.