By Pat Isaak

Walking the walk on equity

Equity has always been an important issue to The Manitoba Teachers’ Society.  For teachers, social justice is important - not only to our own members, or within the public schools in which we work, but to the broader communities and the nation in which we live. 

The Oxford Canadian Dictionary defines equity as “fairness, impartiality, even handedness.” But equity is more than a concept. It needs to be dealt with not as a stand alone idea, but rather a principle that is part of the everyday culture of our organization and our profession. And like everything else an organization does, we must be able to demonstrate the success of our commitment to equity – and we’ve had a lot of successes in recent years.

For example, there was a time when female teachers earned less than their male colleagues.  While that is still the case in many jobs, it doesn’t apply to teaching anymore.  It was also just a few short years ago that, after decades of lobbying,  the provincial government finally permitted women on maternity leave to purchase that time as pensionable service.  Combined with changes to the employment insurance rules and maternity top up clauses now in every collective agreement, we have experienced an enormous improvement in the way women teachers are being treated.

There’s more. This past fall, the AEFM won a tremendous victory when an arbitrator awarded a ground-breaking harassment policy, one that could not be changed without the consent of the teachers’ association.  And throughout the province, we’ve made significant gains in wages and working conditions for substitute teachers.  These ground breaking cases will have a huge ripple effect. They demonstrate the commitment teachers make not just to better salaries, but to a more equitable and just workplace.

Our work on equity issues extends beyond the collective bargaining table. In 2005 and again in 2007, MTS sponsored two very successful conferences that focused on important equity issues.  Both Walking in Both Worlds and Diversity, Democracy, Dignity brought educators together to discuss and learn about improving the educational experience of our students. 

MTS also supports a wide variety of professional development opportunities for our members.  We set aside significant resources for local equity initiatives, as well as provide support through the Teacher Action Cohorts, a group of teachers who provide inservices to schools on issues ranging from bullying to homophobia to diverse and respectful work environments.  

The provincial executive has always kept equity at the forefront in determining MTS priorities.  Whether it’s financial equity through the improvements to the pension plan, professional equity in our efforts to address class size and composition issues or educational equity through our lobbying for increased provincial funding, the Executive does not view equity as a separate silo, but as a fundamental principle by which we do all our work. 

Equity issues should not be relegated to a corner of an organization and marginalized.  Too often we segregate social justice issues, making them separate from the broader goals of the organization.  At MTS we dedicate significant time and resources to these issues.  We work to make sure we’re doing more than just talking the talk, and we can point with pride to real successes.