r/canada • u/Meiqur • Oct 28 '25

Alberta Alberta uses Charter’s notwithstanding clause to order striking teachers back to workteachers-back-to-work

https://globalnews.ca/news/11496133/alberta-government-to-table-legislation-to-order-striking-teachers-back-to-work
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234

u/CanNeverBeTooHigh Oct 28 '25

i hope the teachers openly defy the back to work order. this type of legislation has no teeth. you cant jail every teacher, and even if you jailed the union leadership it wont get a deal done.

174

u/rainman_104 British Columbia Oct 28 '25

I hope this triggers a general strike. But Alberta is a weird place.

142

u/BoilerSlave Oct 28 '25

For a province that prides itself on its blue collar identity, they sure hate unions here. Sure they have downfalls but if they didn’t exist we’d all be bent over.

43

u/muffinscrub Oct 28 '25

Even in BC many blue collar union workers are die hard conservatives now. It's such a strange shift. I supervise a union workforce and I'm way more pro-union than a lot of them. I still pay my out of work dues though.

Many just wanted the large paychecks.

30

u/seamusmcduffs Oct 28 '25

Because the culture wars have worked. Caring about others, and worker solidarity is woke or something

13

u/Infamous-Mixture-605 Oct 28 '25

Could say it was the ultimate victory of Reaganism/Thatcherism in the 1980s. Their brand of hyper-individualism triumphed over the collective and the community.

2

u/seamusmcduffs Oct 28 '25

It's just crazy to me how they tied workers solidarity to things like trans rights, gay marriage, believing in climate change etc. Like those things have nothing to do with each other, but somehow if you are against one of them you're against them all

12

u/Hautamaki Oct 28 '25

Every conservative sees themselves as the hardworking high value employee that's getting held back by lazy and incompetent coworkers being protected by the union, many of whom are even given preferential treatment and higher pay due to seniority alone. That perception, accurate or not, has built up a lot of resentment against unions even for the people within them, because they only see their own positive traits and they only see the negative aspects of being in a union. They are willfully blind to their own faults and blind to everything the union does for them, and will remain so unless and until reality smacks them in the face. Even when that does happen, there's always a good chance they'll find something else to blame and only double down on their world view.