INNISFAIL - Local bargaining has broken down between Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools (RDCRS) and the Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA), officials said Monday.
The sides met for two days of bargaining late last month but failed to reach a new agreement.
The 10,600-student RDCRS includes schools in Innisfail and Olds. There are about 700 contracted and substitute teachers currently working in the division.
Sara Lambert is president of Red Deer Catholic Local No. 8.
In a media release issued Monday, she said the position tabled by the school board “included a number of offensive proposals attempting to strip out longstanding provisions from the collective agreement.”
Teachers in the division have been called to a bargaining meeting on Feb. 14 to discuss next steps, she said.
Teachers will be asked for direction on how to proceed with the bargaining process, which could include asking the mediator to write out of the dispute, she said.
If the mediator exits the bargaining process, a two week cooling off period could be followed by the ATA applying to hold a strike vote.
“Red Deer Catholic teachers just want to be treated with fairness, respect and decency,” Lambert said in a release issued Monday. “The settlement trends are clearly established, and an agreement should be easy to achieve.
“Instead of getting a deal done, negotiators are wasting time, playing games and unnecessarily antagonizing teachers. We deserve to be treated better.”
Following the cooling off period, the school division could hold a lockout vote.
Teachers in the division have been without a finalized collective agreement since 2020.
Kathleen Finnigan, superintendent of RDCRS, told the Albertan the division will be providing comment Tuesday morning.
