Alberta labour leaders gauge interest in general strike after suspension of teachers' bargaining rights

Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) president Gil McGowan says unions will encourage workers incensed by the provincial government’s suspension of bargaining rights to volunteer for recall campaigns and prepare for a possible general strike.

“We will begin the process of organizing towards a potential general strike in Alberta,” McGowan told supporters and media gathered at Ironworkers Hall in Edmonton on Wednesday.

In response to questions, McGowan said the labour movement needs more time to speak with union leaders and non-unionized workers about the appetite and logistics of staging a general strike, in which workers across multiple sectors of the economy would refuse to work.

“We are not going to pull the pin today, but we are going to start the journey,” McGowan said.

On Monday, the Alberta government introduced and passed the Back to School Act in one sitting day of the legislature to force 51,000 public, Catholic and francophone school teachers back to work.

Teachers had been on strike since Oct. 6 over pay that has slipped below inflation, and classroom conditions they say are untenable. Employers locked teachers out on Oct. 9.

Teachers and students returned to classrooms Wednesday after the legislation imposed a new contract on them that almost 90 per cent of educators had voted to reject last month.

The Back to School Act uses the notwithstanding clause to suspend teachers’ rights to collectively bargain, preventing the Alberta Teachers’ Association from challenging it in court. It also halts any potential teacher strikes before September 2028 by preventing teachers from bargaining local matters with their school boards.

Canadian Labour Congress president Bea Bruske told the rally crowd that workers across the country will support their Alberta colleagues.

“When one provincial government gets away with trumping rights and freedoms, every single worker is at risk,” Bruske said.

In 2022, When Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government introduced a bill to declare a planned strike by education support workers illegal, and invoked the notwithstanding clause to try and prevent it, the workers walked off the job anyway.

Under a threat of more widespread strikes and protest, the Ontario government moved to repeal the bill four days later.

Ottawa labour lawyer Malini Vijaykumar said McGowan is likely looking at the Ontario labour movement’s successful threat and hoping that’s enough to get the Alberta government to change course.

“This is the kind of threat that you have to call pretty soon,” she said. “You can't be bluffing about a general strike for weeks on end. But I think it is fair to ... at least for a few days, to be gauging the population's temperature on this.”