BC teachers to remain out until at least Tuesday

Canadian Press:
BC Students to remain out of classes Tuesday as teachers strike continues

Students at British Columbia’s public schools will remain out of classes Tuesday as striking teachers ask the Labour Relations Board to reconsider a ruling their strike is illegal. A spokeswoman from the B.C. Teachers’ Federation said classes would not resume while the board considers the application scheduled to be heard Tuesday. The B.C. Public School Employers’ Association was heading to court Friday afternoon to ask for an enforcement order of the board’s ruling.

The Province:
BC news update: Teachers strike

The Public School Employers Association will present a contempt of court application to B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nancy Brown today. The association is making the application after teachers walked off the job on Friday in an illegal strike. The association wants the court to enforce a Labour Relations Board ruling that the strike is illegal in attempt to force the teachers back to work. B.C.’s 42,000 teachers want a 15-per-cent wage increase over three years.

Parents on picket lines
Parent Lori Goldie’s sign succinctly summarizes her view on the teachers’ strike, which she says her son, Kyle, who has cerebral palsy, is taking very hard, as he ‘lives for school.’
Teachers weren’t the only ones to hit the picket lines Friday. Angry parents and supportive students also walked the line with signs, airing their views on the walkout by B.C.’s 42,000 teachers.

National Post:
BC teachers’ illegal strike continues; Union faces heavy fines
The British Columbia teachers’ strike appears set to drag on into next week, barring a surprise move by either side this weekend. The province’s 42,000 teachers did not report for work yesterday and they say they will remain out until the government negotiates a contract that guarantees improvements to classroom conditions, restores their collective bargaining rights and provides them with a raise.

The Marxist-Leninist Daily:
Liberal Government denies teachers’ right to bargain terms of their employment
The B.C. Liberal government has introduced legislation to outlaw collective bargaining between the B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) and the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association. Bill 12, The Teachers’ Collective Agreement Act, extends the existing teachers’ collective contract to June 30, 2006 effectively negating the teachers’ right to strike or take other job action to defend their common interests as employees of the public school system and teachers of the province’s students. The 42,000 members of BCTF meeting throughout Wednesday voted over 90 per cent in favour of beginning an unlimited strike on Friday in defiance of Bill 12. The strike will continue until the government offers a new collective agreement acceptable to teachers. TML heartily supports and endorses the courageous stand of B.C. teachers.

Teachers vote to take a stand in protest of Bill 12

Teachers throughout the province have voted 90.5 % to take a stand in protest against Bill 12, the legislation introduced Monday to once again impose a contract and order an end to job action.

In Defence of Marxism:
Victory to the teachers
Yet again, the BC Liberal Government has removed the democratic right of employees to strike. From the UBC TAs, to the ferry workers and hospital employees, workers’ rights and public programs are coming under constant attack. Now the Liberals plan to use BC’s teachers as their next layer of cannon fodder. On October 7, 42 000 public school teachers will illegally walk the line in defence of their right to collectively bargain, to go on strike and to save education for BC’s youth. Fightback stands together with the striking teachers.

The Province

Angry B.C. parents lash out at teachers
PICKET LINES: But students provide support to teachers

Elaine O’Connor
The Province

Sunday, October 09, 2005

CREDIT: Les Bazso, The Province
Parent Lori Goldie’s sign succinctly summarizes her view on the teachers’ strike, which she says her son, Kyle, who has cerebral palsy, is taking very hard, as he ‘lives for school.’
Teachers weren’t the only ones to hit the picket lines Friday.

Angry parents and supportive students also walked the line with signs, airing their views on the walkout by B.C.’s 42,000 teachers.

Abbotsford parent Lori Goldie was so fed up with the job action that she went to her son’s school Friday to picket teachers with a sign of her own.

It read: “Teachers: My child is not your leverage tool to get what you want.”

Goldie broke down in tears as she described the impact of the strike on her son, who has cerebral palsy.

“It’s his life. He lives for school. This isn’t fair to my son,” said Goldie, whose son Kyle, 15, is in Grade 10 at W.J. Mouat Secondary.

“I’m angry. I want teachers back in the classroom teaching children.”

She said teachers should wait for a raise like other public sector workers.

“I know all about cutbacks. I’ve lived with them for 15 years, with my own child,” she said.

“The government has asked for one lousy year [of a wage freeze].”

Goldie said many passersby assumed she was picketing with teachers. But those who read her sign honked and clapped, she says.

The other side of her placard read: “Teachers: you claim the government is bullying you: what do you call your own behavior? The only difference is you’re using children.”

But on the other side of the street, teachers were getting a very different message.

W.J. Mouat students Robbi McIntosh, in Grade 12, and Danielle MacDonald, in Grade 11, marched proudly with teachers on the line to back their fight for a negotiated contract.

“As much as I am concerned about my grades and everything because of missing school, I understand why there is a strike. It’s the only way for teachers to be heard and taken seriously,” said McIntosh, 17.

She said she has watched her teachers work hard through recess, lunch, after school and on weekends, coaching, tutoring and marking and thought they deserved better.

“I think they are very underpaid for what they do.”

Both McIntosh and Goldie plan to be on the line at the school again Tuesday to make sure students’ and parents’ voices are heard.

eoconnor@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Province 2005
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Sunday » October 9 » 2005

B.C. teachers’ illegal strike continues
Union faces heavy fines

Jeff Rud
CanWest News Service

Saturday, October 08, 2005

CREDIT: Ray Smith, CanWest News Service
Striking teachers form a picket line outside Victoria High School in Victoria, B.C.
VICTORIA – The British Columbia teachers’ strike appears set to drag on into next week, barring a surprise move by either side this weekend.

The province’s 42,000 teachers did not report for work yesterday and they say they will remain out until the government negotiates a contract that guarantees improvements to classroom conditions, restores their collective bargaining rights and provides them with a raise.

B.C.’s Liberal government yesterday passed the Teachers’ Collective Agreement Act, which sparked the walkout.

The new law imposes a contract extension on teachers until June, 2006, with no wage increase or change to other conditions.

Passage of the act was not easy, however. It came late yesterday afternoon, after an all-night session at the legislature as the Opposition NDP exercised its full entitlement to speaking time on the bill.

After an application by the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association on Thursday, the province’s Labour Relations Board ruled the teachers’ walkout illegal and ordered “the union, its officers, members, employees and agents to immediately refrain from declaring or authorizing a strike against the schools.”

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation faces the possibility of heavy fines if it continues to defy the ruling. But the BCTF has appealed the ruling of the labour board.

The BCTF said yesterday that teachers would not return to work on Tuesday, when the Labour Relations Board is scheduled to hear the union’s appeal of the ruling.

Labour Minister Mike de Jong warned the BCTF and its teachers to obey the law and return to classrooms. He told reporters he was not planning to meet with the union this weekend.

“I know teachers are angry. I know they are upset when a contract is derived out of a process like this,” Mr. de Jong said. “But that’s what’s happened, unfortunately, too many times in the past. It’s happened again. Teachers need to set an example and they need to go back to work and they need to abide by the law.”

NDP leader Carole James said the government is to blame for the dispute, which has put more than 600,000 students out of school.

Schools were open yesterday, but parents were told not to send their children.

“We’re here because the government created this confrontation,” Ms. James said. “There was an opportunity until the passage of the bill for the government to back down, to sit down with the teachers … and the government didn’t make an effort to sit down with the teachers.”

© National Post 2005