The Saskatchewan Teachers Federation is reacting to a recent billboard put up by the provincial government as they're preparing to negotiate.
The billboard states that teachers are getting a "fair deal" with seven per cent wage increases over three years.
STF President Samantha Becotte says that the billboard is something she didn't expect.
"It's a new practice that we haven't seen our government take during our collective bargaining for teachers across Saskatchewan and it is really frustrating to see that they've taken this approach to use advertisements. While it is about a billboard specifically, I know I've heard about some digital advertisements through social media, and who knows what they have planned for the future. So, while it is really disrespectful to teachers and to our bargaining process as a taxpayer myself, I'm wondering why they're wasting money on these attack ads that they could be investing that into public education.”
The amount that the STF has put forward so far was above seven per cent, as they look to ease both past and future inflationary pressures.
"Teachers are looking to restore their purchasing power. We've seen that eroded over the last couple of years and just like everyone, we know inflation has put a significant amount of pressure on teachers and so seven per cent doesn't begin to, first, meet the current inflation rates, let alone help restore some of that really nine per cent that we've seen taken away from teachers over the last seven years or so.”
Becotte claims the billboards are misleading regarding the current situation of teachers.
"I think that really these billboards, one, they are misleading to the public, but two, they really serve to distract from some of the very significant issues that teachers and students are facing in the classroom, and they really just continue to sidestep that responsibility of ensuring all students have access to high-quality education.”
She hopes that teachers do get more compensation for the sake of both teachers and students.
"We need to ensure that teachers have appropriate compensation. That is one piece of our collective bargaining agreement but through all collective bargaining processes, they also should be addressing the employee's working conditions. So for teachers, our working conditions are students learning conditions and we need to ensure that that class complexity and class size piece is being addressed in our collective bargaining agreement.”
“Otherwise we're going to just continue to see this government underfund education and school boards have to submit a balanced budget and the easiest way that we see them balancing the budget is increasing class sizes or diminishing the professional supports that they have so we can no longer allow this government to balance their books on the backs of students. It's not right, and they honestly deserve more, so we're ready to take a stand on that.”
The provincial government did not respond with a statement by the time this story was published.