Every two or three years, the Ministry of Education and the teachers’ unions engage in the spectacle of ritual combat known as collective bargaining. In 2025, the Public Service Commissioner took over from the Ministry in the arena. But the exercise remains a ritual.

Everyone knows, more-or-less, what the outcome will be before bargaining even begins. The education budget is fixed, so the government negotiator has very little room to move.

Typically, the ritual goes as follows.

The government negotiator makes an opening offer, which the unions derisively reject. They advise their members to vote it down.

Unions know the government negotiator operates within a fixed fiscal envelope. Their real objective, therefore, is not to radically increase the pay offer, but to achieve concessions on workload and conditions.

The fight usually lasts a few months, with offers and counter claims.  Sometimes the unions call strikes.

Pressure mounts on the unions to settle. Their members don’t receive any pay increase until they do. Eventually, a settlement is reached, somewhere near the original offer, but with some of the concessions the union was seeking. 

The current round, which began last year, is ongoing. The secondary teachers’ union settled in December, but the primary teachers’ union decided to fight on. That may be a decision they live to regret.

Instead of sticking to the choreographed moves, the Commissioner enabled school boards to increase the salaries of non-union members – about a third of the profession – by 4.7%.

The union had received the same offer in February. They rejected it without even taking it to their members.

Union spokesman Liam Rutherford said the Commissioner’s move was “a serious breach of good faith and undermined collective bargaining.”

Good faith or not, Rutherford is right about collective bargaining. But contrary to his view, undermining collective bargaining is a good thing.

Teachers’ unions have long used education reform as a bargaining chip in pay negotiations. Moreover, they insist that teachers be paid according to their length of service rather than how well they teach.

Teachers should have a four-tier career structure. Advancement should be based on evidence of quality teaching, judged by expert panels.

The top two tiers should attract considerably higher pay than any classroom teacher currently receives. Teachers at these levels should be curriculum leaders and train new teachers.

The Commissioner has disrupted the ritual. Now it is time to end it once and for all.