Bea Walker is in the running to be the next labour leader for thousands of Manitoba teachers.
The Many Faces Education Centre teacher is running for president of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS), the collective bargaining group that covers Manitoba public school teachers. In total, the group has around 15,000 members, including dozens in Flin Flon.
When Walker started planning a run for the position last fall, she intended to run for MTS’s soon-to-be-vacant vice-president spot. In 2015, Walker ran for that position and narrowly lost, coming just seven votes shy of a win.
“Initially, my plan started back in the fall – I’d say around September. It hadn’t been a secret for people in teaching circles here,” she said.
“Often, what happens is the vice-president moves into the president position. That doesn’t mean it has to be that way. I changed what position I wanted to run for at about Christmas time.”
Walker said the ever-changing nature of teachers’ issues in Manitoba motivated her to change her mind and switch to the presidential race. With a comprehensive provincial education review currently in development, possible amalgamation or dissolution of some school boards on the table and labour discussions between MTS and the provincial government often hitting the rocks, Walker felt it was time to step up.
“The political picture has changed so much in terms of the government and so much in terms of what’s going to happen with school divisions, with teachers, with collective bargaining. There’s going to be an education review. With all of these things, there’s a lot of balls in the air to juggle,” she said.
Walker first became involved in organized labour before she ever stepped in a classroom as a teacher. Before receiving her first job in Brochet, Walker worked for Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting (HBM&S) and was familiar with the work of the United Steelworkers (USW). When Walker started work as a teacher, she said she brought the knowledge she learned at HBM&S with her.
“That’s something new teachers don’t usually bring,” she said.
Since then, Walker has sat on a number of MTS committees and in several prominent positions. She currently chairs the group’s provincial Workplace Safety and Health standing committee and the Women in Education and Leadership ad hoc committee.
“I’ve been involved with the teacher’s society for quite a few years. I’ve been on the board for ... this would be my eighth year on the (provincial) board. I’m not new to the game, but I feel that we need to have the best person in that job: somebody who has good communication skills, who’s good at developing relationships. I’ve got deep ties with the Manitoba Teachers’ Society,” she said.
“I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t think I was the best person for the job. Sometimes, you make a decision and you have to make that decision based on what’s the best thing you can do for that organization. I make those decisions based on that, not what’s best for me. You can either make a decision to do something, or you can make a bad decision, to do nothing, to not change anything.”
In recent years, the Flin Flon chapter of MTS and the Flin Flon School Division board of trustees have worked closely and have led rounds of bargaining between MTS and the provincial ministry of education. The Flin Flon chapter has an enshrined policy of exchanging proposals during negotiations, the only MTS chapter who has such a policy in their own collective agreement.
“We’re the only one that does that here. It’s probably based on the industrial model. I remember doing the exact same thing with USW,” Walker said.
“I think our school board does value and respect our teachers and we’ve seen that over and over again. They want our teachers to be treated well and they want us to be treated with respect. I’ve seen it,” said Walker of the relationship between Flin Flon’s MTS unit and the school board.
“It’s always been a good working relationship. You don’t have to agree. You just have to be respectful and listen, make sure that you hear what you’re saying.”
The presendential election will take place in May at the MTS’s annual meeting in Winnipeg.
