British Columbia: Teachers poised to strike

The British Columbia Teachers Federation—armed with an overwhelming mandate from its 42,000 members—announced plans last week for escalating job actions, culminating in an full-scale walk out by October 24.

Starting today (Sept 28) teachers will begin a modest job action aimed at inconveniencing administrators, by refusing to supervise students outside of class, except voluntary extra-curriculars, attend management meetings or complete report cards.

If there is no progress in contract talks by October 11, the teachers union will launch rotating strikes around the province, which will be followed by a full strike on October 24.

Because the Liberal government of BC has declared education an essential service, the BC Labour Relations Board will rule on what level of teaching would have to be maintained during a strike. The BCTF has not indicated if it will or will not abide by the rulings made the Labour Board.

Below are links to a number of articles from the national and local press, was well as the BCTF regarding the job actions/strikes:

The Province: Teachers take action today (Sept 28)

Why teachers are primed to strike (Sept 28)

BCTF: Teachers take a stand to restore services (Sept 28)

BCTF: BC Premier Gordon Campbell blames schools boards (Sept 28)

BCTF: A message to parents from your children’s teachers

Video message from BCTF president Jinny Sims (Sept 27)

Vancouver Sun: BCTF needs a lesson in marketplace competition (Sept 27)

Globe and Mail: B.C. teachers poised to strike (Sept 24)

Teachers vote 88.4% for strike (Sept 24)Teachers take action today
They refuse to supervise kids, write reports

Elaine O’Connor, with a file by Ian Bailey
The Province

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

B.C. teachers begin job action today by withdrawing administrative and supervisory duties.

It’s not supposed to impact students, but that’s not the case in some districts.

In districts with adequate non-union and board staff, schools are calling on principals, vice-principals and district staff to supervise students before and after school, and during recess and lunch.

But smaller districts are already overhauling their school day due to job action. Students in Fort Nelson schools, for example, will see recess eliminated, lunch hour shortened and the school day cut because the district doesn’t have the extra staff to take on supervisory duties.

“We’re a small district,” said Diana Samchuck, superintendent for the five-school, 1,177-student district.

“The fear is someone will be out on duty who is not used to doing student supervision and they’ll be thinking of their primary job task and not see something and we’ll have an accident on our hands.”

In Kelowna, the district has cancelled recess, so all students will be dismissed 15 minutes early.

In the first stage of B.C.-wide job action, teachers are refusing to supervise students outside of class, except voluntary extra-curriculars, attend management meetings or complete report cards.

Vancouver’s University Hill principal Jill Philipchuck said she, her vice-principal, and a district staffer will watch the 525 students over lunch. But it’s staff relations, not extra work, that are her big concern.

“Because teachers are not attending meetings, it makes it difficult to work as a team and to work collaboratively,” she said. “We may need to make a lot more unilateral decisions.”

The B.C. Teachers Federation continues to talk with the employer. BCTF reps met with Associate Deputy Minister of Labour Rick Connolly again yesterday to try to find common ground.

But Premier Gordon Campbell hinted that legislating teachers back to work might be the only solution.

“Legislation is always an option, and unfortunately for us in British Columbia it’s always been required since province-wide bargaining was brought in. We were hopeful the BCTF, the union and the employers would be able to come to a resolution. So far they haven’t been able to,” Campbell told The Province.

B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils past-president Terry Watson said parents are nervous.

“The first round includes items not supposed to affect students in classrooms, but they do affect who is supervising the kids. That’s a change parents are anxious about.”

Surrey’s Christina Woodworth has a six-year-old at James Ardiel Elementary and a 12-year-old at Como Lake Middle School in Coquitlam. She’s frustrated by the lack of information about school plans and concerned about interim supervision.

“You’ve got 300 kids on a school ground. They may not be able to recognize the different dangers that are out there,” she said.

eoconnor@png.canwest.com
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From TheTyee.ca
Why Teachers Are Primed to Strike

Link Address: http://www.thetyee.ca/Views/2005/09/26/Teachersstrike
Published: 2005-09-26 23:00:00
By John Malcolmson

TheTyee.ca

Campbell government’s freeze strategy ignores widening salary gap.

BC teachers have conducted a province-wide strike vote and given their leaders a mandate to initiate job action. Planned strike action is aimed at pressuring the employer and the government to negotiate a new collective agreement. Teachers have worked without a contract since the last one expired in June of 2004.

Labour disputes tend to be messy situations. In the course of collective bargaining and the run-up to a strike situation, many issues get thrown into the mix. Within the current context, however, two “big picture” issues come to the fore.

Big issue #1: Salaries

First is the question of salary. Teachers expect to receive a “reasonable” increase in the new agreement. The employer, backed by government, is determined to hold the line on any hike for teachers. This would freeze teachers’ salaries for all of this past year and at least an additional year.

It is useful to look at the salary increase issue in the context of recent negotiation experiences and outcomes. The last collective agreement ran three years before ending in June of 2004. BC’s newly-elected liberal government imposed that agreement after contract negotiations became deadlocked. In it, teachers got 2.5 percent increases in each of three years. Consumer prices in Vancouver and BC rose at virtually the same rate over that period so real salary levels stayed near-constant.

If one goes back farther in time, a different picture emerges. A Category 5 Vancouver teacher earning the maximum salary saw her earnings grow just under 10 percent between June of 1998 and June of 2004. Prices over that period increased at a faster rate and have climbed another 1.5 percent in the past school year. What this means is that earnings lag inflation by about four percent over the last seven years. This is a significant but not enormous drop. However, what galls teachers is the fact that a salary freeze would be imposed at a time when economic growth, rising energy prices and increased federal transfers have pushed BC’s public accounts far into the black. And current forecasts have the province’s finances staying out of deficit territory over the full term of a new collective agreement.

So, if government can afford to reduce corporate taxes and put more cash in the pockets of big business, why is it loathe to pay teachers a “reasonable” salary increase? If it can put more money into roads, buildings and infrastructure, why not into supporting those who makes our public services work?

An aging teacher staff

These questions acquire a different urgency when looked at in light of the ongoing ageing of BC’s teacher population. At the start of 2003/04, almost two-thirds of our teachers were over age 45 and a full 43 percent of BC teachers were aged 50 plus. The latter group is within five years of possible retirement. Given recent layoffs of younger teachers having less seniority, that percentage is almost surely higher today.

BC’s post-secondary system does not graduate anywhere near the volume of education students to offset this impending attrition. Years of compressed funding at colleges and universities have left these institutions ill-prepared to meet the challenge of supplying enough teacher replacements to address staffing needs for the near-future.

The advancing retirement bulge means that we will have to attract and retain new BC grads here as well as compete nationally and beyond for more bodies if we are to replenish teachers’ ranks. Historically, this has been the approach BC has taken to address this need. A sizeable chunk of BC’s teachers were educated elsewhere in Canada and many internationally. They migrated here to start or continue their teaching careers.

This “strategy” may have worked in the past. However, today’s teachers are aging everywhere in Canada. School authorities and provincial ministries across the country all face a need to replace the high volume of educators expected to exit the system in the coming decade. It is a classic situation where demand will increase at a rate outstripping available supply. The winners in this kind of market scenario will be those offering, guess what — superior salaries, good pensions (which are tied to salaries) and decent career working conditions.

It is for reasons like this that the BCTF is working to focus attention on the yawning teacher salary gap between cities like Vancouver and urban centers in provinces like Alberta and Ontario. A just-published report by staff researcher Colleen Hawkey and titled “Inter-city Teacher Salary Comparisons, 2005-07” provides some startling comparisons with what teachers earn in other parts of the country.

For example, a new Category 5 teacher in Vancouver this September actually earns $329 more than her counterpart in Toronto, but after 10 years on the job, will trail the annual Toronto salary by almost $10,000. The same Vancouver teacher lags her starting colleague in Edmonton by more than $5,600, a gap which doubles in size over the next decade of movement up the experience grid.

These gaps are calculated for the current year only. They will grow in size if a salary freeze is imposed in BC. This is because teachers’ salaries are not frozen in these other jurisdictions.

If a new Alberta teacher can earn thousands more starting out in Edmonton, why make the trek to BC? Or, if a young teacher is struggling to pay the bills here in this province, why wouldn’t she take a long and hard look at a Toronto or Ottawa career that promises $300,000 more in lifetime earnings and a better pension to boot? There are surely good reasons these folks might come to or remain in BC, but we would do well remembering that nice scenery and Lotusland winters will only go so far.

Big Issue #2: Working and learning conditions

The second “big picture” issue referenced at the start concerns working conditions. In crucial respects, this is the real story of the current contract stand-off. BC has seen a wholesale deterioration in school working conditions since the last imposed settlement stripped out class size and staffing provisions.

In the past four years, salary and other cost increases have forced our school system to cannibalize itself. Since negotiating working conditions was made ultra vires and in the face of ongoing budget restrictions, class sizes have increased and thousands of teachers have been let go. Schools have become more difficult places to work and, for students, more difficult places to get an education.

This year, the province pumped an additional $150 million into school operating budgets. Judging from its strategy at the bargaining table, the Ministries of Finance, Education and Treasury Board are eager not to let much of this increase find its way into the pockets of teachers or other staff.

Back to freeze mode

School budgets are projected to re-enter freeze mode next year and remain there into 2007/08. This much was re-affirmed last week in Carole Taylor’s budget. Her speech to the legislature mentioned the word “education” only once, in the context of plans to build new relationships with First Nations.

Accompanying budget documents confirm that last spring’s forecast of a two-year school funding freeze remains the Liberal party line.

What better way to lock the freeze down than to put the clamps on a teacher salary bill which currently accounts for more than a half of all public school spending? And what better tool to free up money for other priorities, including corporate tax cuts, than to engineer a multi-year respite from rising cost pressure on the school salary front? Many parents and other members of the public may not relish the prospect of a school shutdown this fall. However, we would all do well to remember that, as messy as labour negotiations are, they provide a vital forum for raising and resolving issues necessary for our schools to adapt for the future. By short-circuiting this process, a legislated settlement blocks such adaptation. Given the issues at stake, we will all lose with that outcome.

John Malcolmson is a consulting sociologist doing research and evaluation in the fields of public education and education finance, literacy, labour relations, justice issues and social policy. He publishes the digital newsletter Finance Watch, where a version of this appeared. To subscribe, email financewatch@shaw.ca
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Wednesday » September 28 » 2005

BCTF needs a lesson in marketplace competition

Michael Campbell
Vancouver Sun

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

You know things are a bit whacky in the ongoing teachers’ labour dispute when the lawyer for the BCTF argues in front of the Labour Relations Board that there is no evidence to suggest that lengthy disruptions or lockouts do long-term damage to education. Lawyer Diane MacDonald is quoted as telling the B.C. Labour Relations Board: “We have had job actions in the past that have been up to three months’ duration without significant impact on the student body.”

Given that my wife and many dear friends are teachers, I think it’s a safe bet to say that if I argued the same thing at home I’d get into a little hot water. Can you imagine how popular I’d be if I said to my wife: ‘Why don’t you phone in sick for a couple of weeks. After all, it won’t make any difference to the kids’ education.’ Not to get into too many personal details, but the response wouldn’t be pretty.

We find ourselves in this bizarre world where a BCTF lawyer is arguing that the federation’s own members aren’t necessary for significant periods of time when it comes to students’ education, while the Ministry of Education argues that they are. Talk about role reversal.

Given that this is the calibre of discussion, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised when I hear the BCTF argue that teachers’ wages must be competitive with Alberta. Even if the BCTF’s demand for a salary increase of 15 per cent over three years is accepted, it will put teachers with 12 years experience earning $73,298, which is about $4,700 less than their counterparts in Edmonton.

I appreciate that salaries do not make up the entire teacher compensation package — which also includes sick days, other forms of paid leave, employer pension contributions, paid vacation, dental and medical benefits. But the point is that, in this one area, the BCTF believes that being competitive is important. As BCTF head Jinny Sims says: “We certainly hope that the employer will consider the need to offer competitive salaries to attract bright graduates and to keep experienced classroom teachers in B.C.”

The B.C. Business Council couldn’t have said it better. The difference is that, for the BCTF, the importance of being competitive with other jurisdictions stops with teachers’ salaries, and certainly doesn’t extend to issues like tax rates, especially for business.

And this brain cramp is not unique to the BCTF. It seems to be a regular feature in the world view of many major unions.

Canada’s largest private-sector union, the Canadian Auto Workers, argues that special tax breaks in the form of subsidies are needed for big U.S. auto manufacturers in order to encourage investment in Canadian plants. Yet they strongly oppose corporate tax reductions in other sectors. We also have the NDP opposed to lowering business taxes, yet supporting special tax breaks for major American and Canadian film companies. Organized labour supports special tax breaks for labour-sponsored mutual funds, while opposing business tax reductions in other areas.

The intellectual inconsistency is breathtaking. The appreciation for the need to be competitive in terms of wages, tax rates and regulatory environment should not be confined to few self-serving areas. All Canadians will benefit when a broader policy approach toward competitiveness is adopted that extends past the concerns of a few special interests in business or labour.

Michael Campbell’s Money Talks radio show can be heard on CKNW 980 on Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

Copyright © 2005 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest Global Communications Corp. All rights reserved.

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B.C. teachers poised to strike
Union announces escalating job action; province vows to prevent class disruptions
By ROD MICKLEBURGH
Saturday, September 24, 2005 Page S1

VANCOUVER — Armed with an overwhelming strike mandate, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation unveiled plans yesterday for escalating job action by the province’s 42,000 public school teachers, culminating in an all-out walkout by Oct. 24.

The Liberal government immediately vowed to prevent any disruption of school classrooms, setting the stage for yet another bitter showdown between the long-standing adversaries.

The wide gulf between the two sides was underscored later in the day when, for the first time in the long dispute, the BCTF disclosed its salary demands.

The union is seeking annual wage increases of 4, 5 and 6 per cent over three years, a direct challenge to the government’s two-year, mandated wage freeze for all public-sector employees.

“Teachers need and deserve a reasonable salary increase,” said a BCTF bargaining bulletin, arguing that pay hikes are justified by cost-of-living increases and a widening wage gap between B.C. teachers and their counterparts in Alberta and Ontario.

Further inflaming the pending confrontation is the teachers’ determination to roll back Liberal legislation banning them from negotiating class sizes. The union won that right from the previous NDP government in return for giving up a wage increase.

Education Minister Shirley Bond said the government is committed to keep the schools running, despite the strike plans.

“Education is absolutely essential . . . and we will consider all of our options to make sure that students stay in the classroom,” Ms. Bond declared yesterday, less than an hour after BCTF president Jinny Sims announced the union’s vote and strike strategy.

She charged that the teachers union has stalled attempts to negotiate a new collective agreement so it can be in a position to strike this fall.

“I am continually disappointed by the practices that are being engaged in by the teachers,” said Ms. Bond, noting that a government-appointed fact-finder is meeting with union and school trustee negotiators.

The teachers’ strike vote was 88.4-per-cent in favour, with about 80 per cent of the union membership taking part.

“This is a historic day for teachers,” Ms. Sims said.

“We have voted yes to restore student learning conditions to where they were in 2002.

“Since then, they have deteriorated incredibly, and our bargaining rights were legislated away. . . .We know that students have always benefited when teachers take a stand.”

Starting Tuesday, teachers intend to begin modest job action aimed at inconveniencing administrators.

That would include refusing mandated supervision outside regular classroom hours and not submitting student attendance information.

If there is no progress by Oct. 11, the teachers union will launch rotating strikes around the province, followed by a full strike on Oct. 24.

Complicating the situation, however, is how far the teachers can legally withdraw their services.

Education is included under the province’s essential services legislation, so it is up to the B.C. Labour Relations Board to rule on what level of teaching would have to be maintained during a strike.

Ms. Sims was coy on whether the union would comply with LRB restrictions.

“The membership will make that decision,” she said. “The labour board has not yet made any rulings. This is our action plan and we will proceed accordingly.”

Also at the teachers news conference was Leann Buteau, a Vancouver high-school teacher working with special-needs students and the mother of a young daughter with learning disabilities.

Ms. Buteau said she voted to back strike action to improve conditions for students with learning problems. She said her high school has 50 students with difficulties, but funds for only five psycho-educational assessments a year.

Hugh Finlayson, CEO of the B.C. Public School Employers Association, said government intervention may be the only way to solve the bargaining impasse with the BCTF.

“If a dispute is intractable, if mediation doesn’t work, then you have to take action. As it sits right now, this is an intractable dispute.”
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Teachers vote 88.4% for strike
Parents brace for escalating measures

Janet Steffenhagen; With a file from Jennifer Chen
Vancouver Sun

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Teachers are seeking a 15-per-cent wage increase over three years and will begin job action in public schools next week that will affect administrators but not students, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation announced Friday.

But that limited action will escalate to rotating strikes starting Oct. 11 and a full-scale, province-wide walkout Oct. 24 if there is not significant progress at the bargaining table in the meantime, BCTF president Jinny Sims told a news conference.

She wouldn’t say where the rotating strikes would begin but promised to give parents 72-hours notice.

“It’s a historic day for teachers in British Columbia,” Sims said, noting that 80 per cent of the union’s 42,000 members participated in a strike vote this week and 88 per cent them — 27,990 — were in favour of job action. “I am proud of our members today — of their courage and their commitment.”

The BCTF said in a news release that it is seeking wage increases of four per cent in 2004 (its last contract expired in June of that year), five per cent in 2005 and six per cent in 2006.

The government has declared that teachers, like other public servants, will get nothing in 2004 or 2005.

Sims said that during the first phase of teachers’ job action, classroom instruction will continue but teachers won’t supervise students outside of class, attend meetings with management, send attendance reports to the office or communicate with principals and vice-principals. Extra-curricular activities will not be affected, Sims said.

The union originally announced that phase one job action would start Tuesday. But it took the plan to the B.C. Labour Relations Board for approval Friday night, and it was not clear when the board would grant approval, possibly delaying the start of job action until Wednesday

Education Minister Shirley Bond, responding to the union’s announcement, said her government intends to keep students in class, but she would not say whether that means there will be a back-to-work order.

“I remain committed, as does this government, to saying education is absolutely essential . . . and we’re going to make sure that students stay in classrooms.”

Sims said teachers have three goals in negotiations: the restoration of learning conditions that were in place in 2002, a “reasonable” wage increase and the return of full bargaining rights, which were curtailed in 2001 when the Liberals passed a law declaring education an essential service.

That law prohibits a withdrawal of services that would seriously disrupt the education program. The Labour Relations Board has been holding hearings — which are expected to resume Monday — to determine what level of job action is permitted before instructional services is seriously disrupted.

Sims hotly rejected a suggestion from the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association, which bargains for the province’s 60 school boards, that union requests for contract improvements and a pay hike would boost education spending by 35 per cent a year.

“That’s a totally bogus figure,” she said. “It’s a fabrication.”

The 35 per cent figure cited by the employer includes not only the three-year, 15-per-cent wage increase put forward by teachers, but also other proposals currently on the negotiation table, such as an early retirement incentive package.

Sims said earlier that an improvement in classroom conditions is the top priority, with 98 per cent of respondents to a recent union survey indicating they want learning conditions enshrined in their contract as they were in early 2002. That included class-size limits, restrictions on the number of special-needs students in any one class and a requirement that schools have a certain number of specialty teachers — such as librarians, counsellors and ESL teachers — based on student numbers.

Leann Buteau, a teacher at Gladstone secondary in Vancouver, said she voted for a strike after seeing 38 students in a History 12 class, including six with severe learning disabilities. The class has desks for 26 students and textbooks for 24. As well, there are 50 students waiting for psycho-education assessments, but only five can be assessed each year, she said.

“It was time for me to stand up and speak out for all of our students’ learning conditions. That’s why I voted yes.”

Although teachers are ready to strike, Sims said they are also prepared to bargain at any time. She described the appointment of deputy labour minister Rick Connolly as a fact-finder as “a ray of hope.” He has been asked to meet the parties, determine if a negotiated settlement is possible and report to government by Sept. 30.

Bond said she was disappointed the union did not wait for Connolly to finish his work or the labour relations board to issue its ruling on essential services before announcing strike plans.

Many parents picking up their children at Lord Roberts elementary Friday supported the teachers’ proposed strike.

The teachers’ call for higher salaries and improved conditions in schools seems fair, said Zoran Jermilov, standing with his 10-year-old daughter and six-year-old son. “For example, this school has only one telephone for the whole school,” he said.

jsteffenhagen@png.canwest.com

ACTION PLAN

If there is no major progress in bargaining, BCTF president Jinny Sims, pictured above, promised these measures Friday:

FROM This Tuesday No out-of-class student supervision. No meetings with management. No attendance reports. No communication with principals.

Tuesday Oct. 11 Rotating strikes

Monday Oct. 24 Full-scale, province-wide walkout.

WHAT IT WOULD COST

According to figures provided by the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association, the total salary paid out to the province’s 33,314 full-time and part-time teachers in 2004/05 equaled $1.977 billion.

p A four per cent increase to that total would add $79 million, bringing the teacher’s payroll to $2.056 billion in the first year of the contract.

p A five per cent increase would cost a further $103 million, for a total payroll of $2.158 billion in the second year of the contract.

p A six per cent increase would cost a further $130 million, for a total payroll of $2.288 billion in the third year of the contract.

Ran with fact box “Action Plan” and “What It Would Cost”,which has been appended to the end of the story. Also See:Editorial, Letters, C6

© The Vancouver Sun 2005