Educational assistants lose NWT Teachers’ Association voting rights

The NWT Teachers’ Association has told 35 educational assistants a decades-long error accidentally gave them voting rights – which will now be taken away.

Until recently, educational assistants at Yellowknife’s YK1 school district were included in the NWTTA’s bargaining group alongside teachers and treated as full members.

However, the association said a contractor sorting old records over the summer came across documents dating to the 1970s that showed EAs should, in fact, have been “associate members” – and treating them otherwise contravenes territorial legislation.

Now that it’s aware of this, the association said, it can’t knowingly violate the legislation and has to change its practices.

“Unfortunately, this means that YK1 education assistants, effective immediately, are not eligible to vote in elections or hold office,” the association told members by email on Friday last week.

The EAs will still be included in collective bargaining – with a vote in those circumstances – but can’t vote on any other association matters. One person affected by the change has lost a position they held on the YK1 regional executive.

An educational assistant at YK1 told Cabin Radio the latest news, after a summer of uncertainty related to funding changes for EA roles in the territory, was hard to hear.

“We are coming off the back of a devastating series of funding changes that have stripped our workforce and have put students in undesirable situations,” said the employee, who requested anonymity to speak frankly about a matter related to their work.

“I want to have a voice and I want to have agency in the organization that represents me. I want to be able to say what matters to me, and I want to be able to feel like that voice has to be heard.

“I have had my agency taken away from an organization that I have to belong to.”

‘We still value our members’

“This is not a change that anyone was looking for,” NWTTA executive director Matthew Miller told Cabin Radio earlier this week. “It’s just that when it was discovered, we have a legal obligation to be in compliance with legislation.”

Exactly how long the association was out of compliance is not clear. While that may not have been the case since the 1970s, Miller suggested it appears to have been the case since at least the turn of the century.

“They are very, very valued members. They have the ability to sit on the negotiating team. They still vote for ratification for things that affect them. They can have a separate committee for education assistants to provide a voice,” he said of affected EAs.

Miller said the NWTTA was not looking for the territory’s legislation to be changed in the wake of its recent discovery.

“Right now, the legislation defines our members as teachers with certification. The opposite of that would be anyone who doesn’t have teacher certification. Most of those employees currently would be classified under the UNW,” he said.

Asked about the prospect of the affected EAs joining the Union of Northern Workers instead, Miller responded: “That is not something we’re looking at. We still value our members. We still want to represent the YK1 members under collective bargaining.”

Rita Mueller, the NWTTA president, said her organization had “done our best to try to make sure that those 35 education assistants know they are still going to be receiving the same high-quality supports and services.”

“We are actively trying to work with the YK1 regional NWTTA executive to find as many ways as possible to ensure they still have a voice,” Mueller said.

The educational assistant with whom Cabin Radio spoke saw their situation differently.

“They say it was not their intent to disenfranchise us, but it doesn’t really matter what the intent is,” they said. “We are disenfranchised.”