On Tuesday the Alberta government introduced the Back to School Act to end a strike by the province’s 51,000 teachers now in it its fourth week. To add muscle, the government invoked the Charter’s notwithstanding clause. Invoking the clause, Finance Minister Nate Horner said, would ensure that when classrooms open, “they stay open.”

I was somewhat surprised by the fury with which organized labour reacted. Apparently all unions in the province held emergency meetings when the government’s intention to invoke the notwithstanding clause became clear.

Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, promised an  “unprecedented response.” According to McGowan, the UCP “awakened a sleeping giant when they took the unprecedented step of using the notwithstanding clause to strip Alberta teachers of their democratic and constitutional rights. They galvanized unions across the province and, indeed, across the country, like never before.” McGowan is also chairman of the Common Front, a collection of unions from across the province representing more than 350,000 workers.

He has made it clear this is about more than the proposed bill. He threatened to “topple the government” and bring forth a “workers agenda” to protect constitutional rights and preserve democracy.

For a start McGowan says the unions will back recall petitions for UCP MLAs and campaigns for more funding for pubic schools and de-funding of private schools. He did not call for a general strike at this time but said the unions have been started on that path. In his words, “Not necessarily a general strike; but a general strike if necessary.”

McGowan’s ire was echoed by Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, who said that this is a fight uniting the labour movement across the country.

If all this seems like an overreaction, we might remember that the Supreme Court has deemed strikes a right under the Charter’s freedom of association. Organized labour see the Alberta government’s action not only as a violation of a constitutional right but as a precedent that could precipitate an orgy of union-busting in this and other Conservative-led provinces.

This is a reasonable fear considering what is happening down south with the U.S. government waging war on education and this country’s Conservatives, particularly in Alberta, showing more than a little MAGA influence. These are perilous times for democracy and human rights.

Nonetheless, one wonders if there isn’t a better way to solve labour-management disputes. The system has worked reasonably well for a long time, but it still seems unfair that the general public should be punished for someone else’s quarrel, particularly when those being punished are children. They shouldn’t be held hostage.

Is it time, perhaps, for labour courts, where labour and management could make their arguments in front of a jury of their peers? Appeals would be allowed of course. Most importantly the general public, the innocent bystanders, would not be dragged into other disputes not of their making.

In any case, the answer is not in the notwithstanding clause. The Alberta government should have passed their legislation and then defended it, if it came to that, in a court of law. Subverting a constitutional right was simply wrong. Labour is standing up for the rights of all of us.