Who's The Boss? Unions Or Parents?

While you were enjoying your Victoria Day long weekend, a group of activist teacher union delegates were making decisions that might show up in your kid’s classroom.

The vast majority of teachers are servant-hearted, passionate people who just love kids and want to do good work for the families who entrust them with the most precious thing we have: our children.

But this meeting was made up of a relative handful of delegates who are motivated enough to spend a holiday weekend deciding on policy resolutions for the rest of the teachers in Alberta.

They are the kind of unionists who decided the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) motto would be “Masters Not Servants” in Latin: “Magistri Neque Servi”.

They prefer to be master-minds than servant-hearted.

So, if you’ll pardon another Latin phrase, they tend to be the type that one thinker diagnosed with a “Libido Dominandi” - a “lust to rule”.

We promise that is all of the Latin, and none of it will be on the test!

If you knew about this meeting, it may be because these delegates passed a resolution calling for teachers to be able to utilize and display “Pride materials” in their classrooms.

Or maybe you only knew about it because - immediately after the union bosses took to social media to crow about how self-sacrificial they were to schedule a meeting where they ruled over their colleagues on a long weekend - your kid’s school had an extra PD day to compensate for their sacrifice.

One thing that always gets passed over in any reporting on the ATA’s convention, but shouldn’t be, is the passage of the budget.

These activist union delegates - about 1% of the total membership of the ATA - decide how much they can force all the rest of the teachers in Alberta to pay in dues for this organization most of them are required to belong to.

That’s right, except for charter and independent (private) school teachers, every teacher in Alberta is compelled by law to join the ATA, whether they agree with their agenda or not.

Keep that in mind when the ATA engages in grandiose myth-making about the “unfairness” of charter and independent schools.

What they find truly “unfair” is the threat to their monopoly over education!

So, what did this minority of masterminds decide to force all other teachers to pay to be represented by them?

$1,422 per year - a roughly 5.5% increase over last year.

Those would be hefty dues for an organization that represents its members excellently, but there are 43,500 teachers forced to be ATA members.

43,500 teachers, at $1,422 each, means the ATA will have a budget of almost $62 million!

$62 million to oppose access to choices in education outside the ATA monopoly.

$62 million to influence school board elections to favour ATA policy.

$62 million to enforce the ATA’s values in classrooms without including parents.

And remember - all of this is funded by taxpayer dollars, which are used to pay teachers who are compelled by the government to fork these dollars over to union bosses.

Teachers (and taxpayers) shouldn’t be forced to fund an organization hostile to their values.

And the union shouldn't be allowed to use that money to influence our kids' education system.

That's why, here at the Alberta Parents' Union, we're fighting back.

If we can get thousands of parents and/or grandparents to (voluntarily!) join the Alberta Parents' Union, we’ll be able to:

• Fight for more access to choice in education, inside and outside the ATA monopoly
• Inform Albertans about trustee elections, blunting ATA influence with voter participation
• Lift up the voice of Alberta parents, so the education system can be about the kids it’s meant to educate, not simply the adults that it employs
• And so much more!

The Alberta Teachers’ Association has a 104-year head start.

But thanks to the Alberta Parents’ Union, they have already lost something more powerful than that: the ability to pretend to speak for parents without fear of contradiction!

So, join us today and start lifting up the voices of parents who share your values!

The union that knows you’re the boss,

- Jeff and the Alberta Parents’ Union Team