Peter Black
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
peterblack@qctonline.com
Snow days notwithstanding, students are returning to public schools and CEGEPs across the province, in the wake of the storm of teacher strikes.
When all is tallied up – an estimated $11 billion in wage increases each year of the five-year deal; a $300 million catch-up plan; incalculable impact on the learning of affected students, particularly kids with disabilities; and parental frustration and anger – what conclusions can we draw about how unions and government handle negotiations in Quebec’s education sector?
We’ll leave the question of whether the strikes were worth it for the strikers themselves. One thing seems clear: the settlement reached might bring the salaries paid to teachers in Quebec closer to what teachers are paid in other provinces.
According to Statistics Canada, teachers in Quebec are the lowest paid in the country by a considerable margin. The numbers for 2019-20 show the average entry-level salary for both elementary and secondary teachers here is $42,431. The next lowest is British Columbia with $52,300. Ontario is $54,648, and the highest – excepting the territories, where salaries reflect the far higher cost of living – is Manitoba at $60,806. The national average is $52,975.
Quebec teachers nudge ahead of their New Brunswick counterparts by a few bucks after 15 years of service, at $82,585 versus $81,480, but are way behind Ontario at $100,925 and the national average of $93,646.
One can conclude there was some catching up to do during the recent negotiations with the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government, hence the 17.4 per cent hike over five years. Benefits and working conditions are too complicated for this space to compare to other provinces.
Despite the significant salary increase, one must feel some pity or something like it for the members of the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement (FAE), who stayed out the longest, without the benefit of a strike fund (how is that even legal?). The increase they won may compensate somewhat for a large chunk of lost income in 2023.
Is all this strike damage necessary? For a partial answer, we turn to the United States, a country one assumes to be a pro-union bastion, but not when it comes to teachers. According to a recent report on the Education Week website, 37 of the 50 states ban teacher strikes, including two of the three most populous, Texas and New York – one red, one blue. California, notably, allows teacher strikes, and there were several in 2023.
Despite the restriction of such drastic labour tactics, teacher salaries in the U.S. have kept pace with the rest of the Western world. The average starting salary for a public school teacher in the U.S. is $42,723 US vs. $40,722 US in Canada; the top rate is $74,214 vs. $70,331 in Canada.
If you want to make your fortune as a schoolteacher, by the way, head to Luxembourg, where the starting salary is $71,812 US, topping out at $126,000.
Clearly in a place like Quebec, where big unions have serious clout, it’s unlikely any government, especially one afraid of its own shadow like the CAQ regime is these days, is going to dare take up the cause of declaring teaching an essential service and protecting the enshrined right of children to an education.
In any event, with a hard-won five-year deal now in place – barring a rejection in ratification – both parties are surely in no mood to engage in a battle over the right to strike.
Parents, though, are not likely to be so complacent in ensuring their children’s education isn’t put in peril by future labour disruptions. The current trend to send kids to Quebec’s network of government-subsidized private schools is likely to accelerate.
According to one recent study of Quebec’s education system, enrolment in public elementary and secondary schools has dropped by four per cent and five per cent respectively over the past two decades, while enrolment in private schools has surged by 20 per cent over the same period.
The point has been made, in the debate over teachers’ strikes, that educators take to the picket lines not just for more money, but to improve working conditions and thus provide better education for children.
That notion will be put to the test as hundreds of thousands of Quebec students try to catch up on many days of learning lost to strikes.
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