The Parkland school board has laid a complaint with the Alberta Labour Relations Board that the strike by Parkland teachers is illegal. Grounds for the complaint apparently lay in a board contention that the location of the strike was not indicated in the teachers’ strike application. According to Robert Twerdoclib, president of the Parkland teachers’ local, the board complaint is nothing more than a mean-spirited attempt by the trustees to stall an agreement with teachers and further delay the return to school of Parkland students.

Twerdoclib said he believes that at the heart of the actions of trustees is the mistaken belief that they are some sort of vanguard protecting the bargaining positions of school jurisdictions across the province. “We have to ask,” Twerdoclib said, “who do these trustees and this central office team represent? The trustees were elected by the ratepayers of the Parkland School Division. The first responsibility of trustees is to the education of our children in Parkland’s schools.”

“This school board is in desperate need of guidance,” Twerdoclib said. He indicated that teachers would favour the return of a provincially appointed mediator to the dispute and said that teachers are prepared to bargain throughout the weekend, if the trustees are not too distracted concocting further ways to delay an agreement. “We welcome visits by Parkland residents at our strike headquarters,” Twerdoclib said, adding that visitors would not encounter uniformed security guards at the teachers’ centre.

For further information, please contact Robert Twerdoclib at (780) 963-5898.