RECESSION-PROOFING THE COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT - BACK TO THE BASICS FOR TEACHERS IN URBAN CANADA

This article reports the results of a study that examine the most impo rtant bargaining goals among a group of Canadian teachers. Specificall y, secondary school teachers in five schools covered by one board of e ducation were surveyed on priorities for the 1993-94 collective agreem ent. Subsequently, five respondents were interviewed to broaden the un derstanding. Although the focus of the research was to develop an unde rstanding of teachers' priorities, a framework from which to view coll ective bargaining in the current economic climate emanated from the da ta. In particular, there appear to be three distinct components to col lective agreement priorities: recessionary goals, relevant goals, and residual goals. In addition, general conclusions deduced from the surv ey and interview data, and the specific priorities rank-ordered by the teachers surveyed are presented.