Category Archives: Labor

Public schools were shut down across British Columbia today, as 42,000 teachers walked off their jobs. Teachers have been angered over the Liberal government’s removal of their right to negotiate class size, their inclusion under essential-services labor legislation and two successive government-imposed contracts. They are also upset over the impact of funding shortfalls on education, which teachers say have caused a deterioration in classroom learning conditions.

Here are links to today’s stories:

The Globe and Mail: “Teachers to strike in BC
Public schools across British Columbia are shut to students today as the province’s 42,000 teachers begin an indefinite strike in defiance of government legislation imposing a new two-year contract on them.

The Globe and Mail: BCTF president not afraid to take stand against “flawed” laws”
British Columbia Teachers’ Federation president Jinny Sims, who holds a black belt in judo, is ready for a fight and prepared to go to jail. When the province’s 42,000 teachers walk off the job today, Ms. Sims said she knows the consequences of defying a government-imposed contract.

Global National and Canadian Press: BCTF begins indefinite strike
Picket lines went up early Friday at British Columbia schools on the first day of a planned walkout by teachers that kept more than 600,000 students from classes. The pickets were in evidence despite a ruling against the walkout only hours before by the B.C. Labour Relations Board.

The Daily News: BCTF dispute reminiscent of pre-Thacter England
Watching this labour dispute with the BCTF unfolding under Nanaimo’s own Ginny Sims, it’s like watching a Pre-Thatcher era labour dispute in Britain, where the country was paralyzed by labour for decades and Britain was the standing joke of Europe.The Globe and Mail
Teachers to strike in British Columbia
By ROD MICKLEBURGH
Friday, October 7, 2005 Page A10
With a report from Petti Fong

VANCOUVER — Public schools across British Columbia are shut to students today as the province’s 42,000 teachers begin an indefinite strike in defiance of government legislation imposing a new two-year contract on them.

The teachers’ walkout follows an overwhelming 90.5-per-cent membership vote in favour of such action and the apparent failure of a meeting yesterday in Victoria between Labour Minister Mike de Jong and the province’s top labour leaders.

B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Jinny Sims, who was also at the Victoria meeting, said the union is not deterred by the prospect of striking illegally to press its demands for improved learning conditions and a wage increase.

“Our members took a vote, knowing the legislation could be proclaimed today [Thursday], knowing there could be injunctions, knowing there could be fines and knowing that we are going to be threatened by all sorts of things,” Ms. Sims said before the meeting.

“But, knowing all this, our members said they are prepared to take a stand and they are prepared to live with the consequences.”

Teachers have staged one-day protest walkouts in the past, but this time, there is no timetable for a return to work, leaving parents not knowing when their children may be back at school.

The B.C. Public Schools Employers’ Association applied to the provincial labour board late yesterday for a declaration that the teachers’ threatened walkout is illegal and they should report for duty today.

But this is expected to have no effect on the teachers’ plans to set up picket lines outside the province’s 1,666 public schools, giving more than half a million students an early start to the holiday Thanksgiving weekend.

Unionized school-support workers are certain to respect the teachers’ picket lines.

Ms. Sims said union negotiators are prepared to bargain around the clock to settle the bitter dispute, but no talks were scheduled.

Mr. de Jong said it is difficult to negotiate if members of the BCTF are on an illegal strike.

“When you’re a law-abiding citizen, you don’t get to pick and choose which laws you want to abide by,” he told reporters in Victoria.

“This is not the kind of example you would expect from people who are teaching our children.”

However, Mr. de Jong did not the close the door to the prospect of talks over the weekend.

There is also the intriguing possibility that veteran labour mediator Vince Ready could become involved in trying to break the logjam.

Mr. Ready, with a long history of helping resolve difficult contract disputes, was appointed by Mr. de Jong yesterday as an industrial inquiry commissioner (IIC) to recommend a new bargaining structure for the teachers and school trustees.

Since teachers and school boards began provincewide bargaining in 1993, they have not reached an agreement without government intervention. Given his successful track record, most recently in ending an illegal strike by B.C. ferry workers, and his new role as an IIC, involving Mr. Ready would appear to be a natural next step.

All sides, including officers with the B.C. Federation of Labour, are likely to be available during the weekend for any attempt to prevent the teachers’ strike from going into next week.

“Nothing is set up, but there needs to be a table where all these things can be sorted out,” said one officer. Teachers and their union are liable to heavy penalties if they persist with their illegal strike.

The Hospital Employees’ Union was fined $150,000 after hospital workers staged a three-day illegal walkout. The union is also facing a class-action suit financed by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation on behalf of patients.

Complicating the crisis is the history of bad blood between the teachers and the Liberal government.

Teachers have been angered over the Liberals’ removal of their right to negotiate class size, their inclusion under essential-services labour legislation and two successive government-imposed contracts.

They are also upset over the impact of funding shortfalls on education, which teachers say have caused a deterioration in classroom learning conditions.

“The message from teachers is that they are prepared to put themselves on the line to restore learning conditions and to defend their rights to free collective bargaining,” Ms. Sims said.

Bill 12 imposes a two-year wage freeze on members of the BCTF, who are seeking 15 per cent over three years, and no improvement in working conditions.

Reaction to the strike among some trustees and parents was mixed.

Allan Wong, vice-chair of the Vancouver School Board, called on the provincial government to restore the teachers’ right to a freely negotiated agreement.

“When almost 91 per cent of the province’s teachers vote to take such action, the government needs to realize that these professionals have been deeply offended,” said Mr. Wong, in a statement.

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The Globe and Mail
Federation president not afraid to take stand against ‘flawed’ laws
By PETTI FONG
Friday, October 7, 2005 Page S1

VANCOUVER — British Columbia Teachers’ Federation president Jinny Sims, who holds a black belt in judo, is ready for a fight and prepared to go to jail.

When the province’s 42,000 teachers walk off the job today, Ms. Sims said she knows the consequences of defying a government-imposed contract.

“Our teachers know what the legislation means. They’re saying that there are some laws that are so bad, so flawed you have to take a stand,” she said. “They could threaten us with fines. They could even threaten to put me in jail.”

In a secret ballot this week, teachers voted by more than 90 per cent to defy the B.C. Liberals’ imposed settlement, a decision that Ms. Sims said makes her proud to be a teacher and proud to lead the membership.

The former president of the Nanaimo District Teachers’ Association hadn’t planned on becoming a teacher. Ms. Sims originally wanted to be a pilot, but a height restriction forced her to choose an alternative career, and she has never regretted becoming a teacher.

She made history on a number of levels when she was elected to head the teachers’ federation in March, 2004.

Ms. Sims became the first Indo-Canadian woman elected president of the union, and joining her in the top executive positions were two other women, making it the first time that the people in the highest-ranking spots were female.

Three-quarters of the BCTF are women, but since the federation’s inception in 1917, only five women before Ms. Sims held the president’s seat.

Ms. Sims is following the tradition of seeing her role as protecting the rights of students and teachers, said former BCTF president Neil Worboys.

“When I was president, the call was the same. We wanted to have learning conditions that were good for our students and the ability to bargain that. So, everything that Jinny is passionate about is aptly representing the membership of the federation.”

Mr. Worboys said the government has tried to play down how much support Ms. Sims has among the rank and file, but the recent high turnouts by teachers to vote — a strike mandate of 88 per cent and a 90-per-cent approval to walk off the job — prove that most teachers are behind the BCTF leader.

However, parent Tessie Wallace, who is a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said she has mixed feelings about Ms. Sims’s strong stand.

Ms. Wallace, who has children attending high school in Nanaimo, said that if the issue were just about class composition, she would be more empathetic.

But many other unions have zero increases and even wage rollbacks, she said.

“They’re not asking teachers to take a rollback, the government is saying there is not enough money for a raise,” Ms. Wallace said.

“I do understand that as a union, as workers, they should have the right to express their misgivings, but they are holding kids hostages.”

Ms. Wallace, who is a noon-hour supervisor, said her union has told members not to cross the picket line, a position she opposes, citing her right to do her job.

When teachers set up picket lines today, some of the children who won’t be able to go to school include Ms. Sims’s grandchildren. Three of them attend elementary schools.

Ms. Sims was born in India, and emigrated with her family to England when she was 9. Punjabi is her first language and she struggled to learn English, but by her teens she was active and an athlete, competing in fencing and earning a black belt in judo.

In university at Manchester, she met her future husband, Stephen Sims, who was also studying to be a teacher. Their cross-cultural relationship, she remembers, was so unusual that the couple brought traffic to a halt.

Her union involvement began with the National Union of Teachers in Britain and she continued that activism after the family immigrated to Canada in 1975.

In Nanaimo, where they settled, Ms. Sims taught social studies, English and fencing. She last taught at Dover Bay Secondary School.

Kirsty Harrington, a parent adviser for the school, said Ms. Sims was a very pleasant teacher. But she does not agree with the job action. Students, particularly in high school, will face serious setbacks with any loss of education time, she said.

Ms. Harrington instructed her daughter to take home all her binders, course notes and books from school yesterday in preparation for a lengthy strike.

“It’s devastating because they can’t afford to miss one single day,” Ms. Harrington said. “Students who have provincial exams are going to be hurt.”

But other parents back the teachers. Linda Vass, chair of Ballenas Secondary School in Nanaimo, said she supports Ms. Sims’s actions.

“She has made a good point that teachers are not being heard,” she said.

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BCTF begins ‘indefinite’ strike

Global National with Canadian Press

October 7, 2005

CREDIT: Richard Lam, Canadian Press
Karin Bernauer, of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers Association, prepares strike kits for individual schools for today’s walkout of B.C.’s 42,000 teachers.

CREDIT: Richard Lam, Canadian Press
Templeton high school students (from left) Samantha Campbell, Ellen Sandover and Megan Berg leave the school Thursday after making a banner in support of the teachers’ planned walkout.
VANCOUVER (CP) — Picket lines went up early Friday at British Columbia schools on the first day of a planned walkout by teachers that kept more than 600,000 students from classes.

The pickets were in evidence despite a ruling against the walkout only hours before by the B.C. Labour Relations Board.

GLOBAL NATIONAL REPORTS
» Weekend Anchor Tara Nelson reports
However, the president of the B.C. Teachers Federation, Jinny Sims, said the union would ask the Labour Relations Board to re-consider the ruling, calling it flawed.

Members of the teachers union are in a battle over government legislation that imposes a wage-freeze contract on them. The union contends its action is a protest against that legislation.

Sims has said teachers will not go back to school until they gain a new deal with the government that addresses collective bargaining rights, includes a wage hike and commitment to smaller class sizes.

The union representing 42,000 teachers could be hit with steep fines and executive members could even be threatened with jail time over the scheduled walkout.

Late Thursday, the Labour Relations Board told teachers to immediately resume their duties and work schedules, and ordered them to refrain from picketing at or near schools. It also told the union to refrain from declaring or authorizing a strike.

Labour leaders and Labour Minister Mike de Jong met Thursday but didn’t resolve the impasse.

A marathon sitting of the house was debating Bill 12 on Friday, the controversial legislation that imposes a contract on the teachers.

Government house leader Mike de Jong says the legislature will sit as long as it takes to pass the bill, which has yet to get second reading.

NDP MLA Corky Evans said the government wants to hold the line on teachers’ salaries despite running up a billion-dollar surplus, and he noted the Liberal government came up with a tax break for corporations in the recent mini-budget.

The president of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils says children are once again being used as pawns.

Council head Kim Howland said there was concern and confusion from parents as they scrambled to find care and pay for that care while their kids out are of school.

She said she hopes a new mechanism can be found to end the animosity between the teachers’ union and public school employers.

In Victoria, teacher Brian Dallamore hit the picket line early.

“I tend to be, personally, quite a lawful, law-abiding person,” the 27-year teaching veteran said.

“But there are times when you have to take a stand. That’s what civil disobedience is all about.”

Grade 7 teacher Karl Brodsgaard said he and his partner have only a few years of teaching left so have nothing to gain by striking.

“But the future teachers need to be protected,” he said.

In Dawson Creek, the president of the South Peace Teachers Association said teachers have been pushed into a corner.

“The government does not think it is important that the learning conditions of students be addressed, so they need to look at other ways to figure out how to negotiate,” Judy Richardson said.

Veteran B.C. mediator Vince Ready was appointed to head an industrial inquiry commission to recommend a new bargaining structure for teachers.

On Wednesday, teachers voted 90.5 per cent in favour of setting up picket lines starting Friday to protest the government’s legislation that freezes their wages until June 2006.

Labour lawyer Gavin Marshall said teachers are likely to claim their walkout doesn’t constitute a strike because they’re merely staging a political protest against a government-imposed contract and that their move is protected expression under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The teachers had demanded a 15 per cent wage increase over three years while the government offered zero as part of its public-sector wage policy.

The union also sought a cap on class sizes and a restoration of student resources lost to B.C. Liberal funding cuts in 2002.

B.C. teachers have been subjected to imposed contracts four times since 1993.

© Global National 2005

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BCTF dispute reminiscent of pre-Thatcher England

The Daily News

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Dear Sir;

Watching this labour dispute with the BCTF unfolding under Nanaimo’s own Ginny Sims, it’s like watching a Pre-Thatcher era labour dispute in Britain, where the country was paralyzed by labour for decades and Britain was the standing joke of Europe.

I understand Sims grew up there during that time and must have absorbed something of that mood.

Smart and articulate but just a little too militant for my taste. I can be abrasive too but I’ve heard you always get more flies with honey than vinegar.

Time moves on and so must we all, our teachers aren’t badly paid but we understand that they want more, well don’t we all.

Considering this virtual labour monopoly in public education, teachers should welcome vouchers where parents have choice for private education alternatives.

We have already had some alternative choice with church-affiliated schools but they are a small part of our education system.

I have always supported both but chose to sent my children to public school so it’s not as if I’m not a supporter of our public system, but common sense must prevail.

This dispute with the militant leadership of the BCTF is nothing new because it has erupted under every government we’ve had, including the NDP.

The only difference is, when their party the NDP was in, the vitriol wasn’t as palpable as it was under Social Credit or the Liberals.

A double standard, because no government is always straight up with everything it does, the question becomes complicated when you try to please everyone!

Casey Timmermans

Nanaimo

© The Daily News (Nanaimo) 2005

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Video: BCTF President Jinny Sims announces walk-out

Vancouver Sun: Teachers vote to walk out; Union intends to set up picket lines Friday and stay out until teachers’ demands are met

B.C.’s public school teachers, angry over a government-imposed contract settlement that includes no wage increase, have voted 90.5 per cent in favour of staging an illegal full-scale walkout beginning Friday and lasting until a solution is reached to the current impasse.

Globe and Mail: BC teachers to walk off job

British Columbia’s public-school teachers, enraged by the province’s decision to impose a two-year contract, vowed to walk off the job tomorrow with no plan in place to return.

The Province: Teachers vote to walk out; Union says it won’t be bullied into legislated deal

Defiant teachers said last night they will walk out on a strike tomorrow, and they won’t go back to work until they have a new contract. “Teachers will mount picket lines on Friday and remain off the job until a settlement is reached,” said Jinny Sims, president of the B.C. Teachers Federation. “We will not be bullied into another legislated contract.”Thursday » October 6 » 2005

Teachers vote to walk out
Union intends to set up picket lines Friday and stay out until teachers’ demands are met

Darah Hansen, with files from Jeff Rud, Victoria Times Colonist
Vancouver Sun, with files from the Victoria Times Colonist

October 6, 2005

B.C.’s public school teachers, angry over a government-imposed contract settlement that includes no wage increase, have voted 90.5 per cent in favour of staging an illegal full-scale walkout beginning Friday and lasting until a solution is reached to the current impasse.

“Teachers have spoken clearly. We will not be bullied into accepting another legislated contract that doesn’t meet the needs of our students and doesn’t respect our rights as working people,” B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Jinny Sims told reporters late Wednesday night after the vote results were announced.

Sims said teachers will set up picket lines outside schools across B.C. Friday and will remain off the job until a resolution has been reached and accepted by a subsequent vote by members.

She said an acceptable resolution must address issues of class size, the restoration of bargaining rights that teachers say have been taken away from them and “a fair and reasonable” salary increase.

She said the union is willing to meet with government negotiators around the clock to hammer out a solution.

But she said “we need a partner on the other side who comes and engages in a dialogue.”

Prior to the vote, teachers were informed about the BCTF recommendations they were voting on and the potential consequences of an illegal strike, including heavy fines. “They could even threaten to put me in prison,” Sims said.

She said the turnout for the vote was high, but didn’t give a number. She said the mood was one of “sadness, outrage and frustration that we have been forced to take such a dramatic step to achieve our goals.”

Unlike the one-day protest teachers staged in January 2002 — the last time the province legislated a contract — this time the job action is open-ended.

Under recommendations passed Wednesday night, the province’s 42,000 teachers will stay out until they complete a second vote to return. That opens the door for the possibility of more than one day without instruction in B.C.’s schools.

A vote to return to classes would be called on the recommendation of the BCTF executive council.

On Wednesday, teachers also voted in favour of their union continuing to push government to change its mind about this week’s legislation, which will extend the existing contract to June 30, 2006, effectively quashing the teachers’ right to strike.

Such a meeting is scheduled for today at the legislature, between Sims, Labour Minister Mike de Jong and B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair.

Teachers had been asking for a 15-per-cent wage increase over three years, but the new legislation means they are facing a wage freeze until next June.

In Vancouver, the walkout will affect approximately 55,000 students, from kindergarten to Grade 12.

Speaking prior to the final voting tally, Vancouver school board vice-chairman Allen Blakey said board members would likely hold an emergency meeting with district managers to discuss “how we are going to operate” in the event of a walkout. Contingency plans put in place across the district would depend, he said, on the expected length of the walkout.

John Gaiptman, district superintendent in Greater Victoria, said principals would remain in the schools, but CUPE members in the schools, including secretaries, special-needs assistants, lunch monitors and custodians, have vowed not to cross any teacher picket lines.

“We will be asking parents to keep their kids at home,” said Gaiptman, echoing the plans of other B.C. districts for handling the walkout.

An estimated 2,200 Vancouver teachers gathered at the Orpheum Theatre Wednesday afternoon to hear from union representatives and cast secret-ballot votes on the executive’s recommendations. The ballot simply asked teachers to mark yes or no to their support for the BCTF resolutions.

Outside the theatre, many teachers said the government has left them with no choice but to walk out.

“I feel if we don’t take any action . . . then our rights as human beings are being cut into,” said Anastasia Mirras, a teacher-psychologist in Vancouver.

Teacher Donna Brack said that for her, the worst part of the government’s decision to impose a contract settlement was that it happened so quickly, and that the government treated it so cavalierly.

“The [premier] couldn’t be bothered to give the 55,000 students in Vancouver, and how-ever-many millions in B.C., more than eight or 10 minutes of his time,” Brack said.

Brack, who teaches at the Gathering Place Education Centre in Vancouver’s downtown, said public school class sizes are increasingly unmanageable, and the needs of students aren’t being met.

“I really truly think we’re at a crisis point in public education, and I don’t think that’s being melodramatic,” she said. “People really need to start speaking out if they want to save public education.”

Labour Minister Mike de Jong said his reaction to the planned walkout “is one of profound disappointment and some surprise that the union would show such blatant disregard for the rule of law.”

De Jong said if the teachers’ vote was designed to alter the passage of Bill 12, it will have the opposite effect.

Meanwhile, debate on Bill 12 continued in the house Wednesday night. NDP education critic John Horgan vowed “we’re going to be debating Bill 12 until we can’t debate it any longer.”

Bill 12 is not the only legislation that would make a teacher’s strike illegal. Under provincial legislation regulating essential services, the BCTF can only withdraw services from the classroom after receiving approval through the Labour Relations Board. LRB adjudicator Mark Brown has yet to rule on what constitutes essential services in the classrooms.

Teachers could face civil contempt charges in B.C. Supreme Court for violating provincial legislation. But before it can file its case with the court, the teachers’ employer, the B.C. Public Schools Employers’ Association, must go to the LRB and have the strike declared illegal.

dahansen@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2005
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B.C. teachers to walk off job
By ROD MICKLEBURGH and PETTI FONG
Thursday, October 6, 2005 Posted at 8:34 AM EDT
Globe and Mail Update

British Columbia’s public-school teachers, enraged by the province’s decision to impose a two-year contract, vowed to walk off the job tomorrow with no plan in place to return.

“Teachers have spoken clearly. We will not be bullied into accepting another legislated contract that doesn’t meet the needs of our students and doesn’t respect our rights,” Jinny Sims, president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation said last night.

Teachers voted 90.5 per cent to protest against the government legislation that earlier this week imposed a two-year contract on the teachers that provides no wage increase and no improvement in their working conditions.

The government’s decision has galvanized teachers, said high-school teacher Ian Weniger.

“They thought they could divide us. But their actions have angered more teachers now than just a few days ago.”

Teachers plan to mount picket lines in schools across British Columbia today and will remain off the job until a resolution is reached, they said.

Ms. Sims said last night that teachers are expressing sadness, outrage and frustration and feel they are being forced to take such dramatic action.

The 42,000 members of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation voted across the province Tuesday and yesterday on recommendations from their union executive to walk during meetings that officials said were extremely well attended.

Today, top labour leaders were to head to Victoria for a critical meeting with Labour Minister Mike de Jong.

“We will be there to discuss whether or not we can find a solution to this dispute,” said B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair, who will be at the meeting along with Ms. Sims.

“Now is the time to do that because I think the teachers are ready to sit down and solve the problem, and the government should be too.”

Also expected to be there are labour federation secretary-treasurer Angela Schira, George Heyman of the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union and Barry O’Neill, head of the B.C. division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

Vancouver teachers appeared boisterous and determined as they met yesterday afternoon for a rally at the historic Orpheum Theatre downtown.

Many said they are angry at the deterioration of learning conditions in their schools since the Liberals took office in 2001.

“We can’t go on and pretend that things will somehow get better while we muddle through and kids keep falling through the cracks,” Mr. Weniger said. “This has to stop and this has to stop now.”

Michael Schratter, a Grade 5 teacher at David Oppenheimer School, said there is more at stake than a temporary classroom disruption for students and their parents.

“As much as they are hurt and as much as my action will create hardship, my heart tells me our social democracy is in question, and I have to take a stand,” he said.

“There are two pillars worth standing up for and making people listen and take action: They are public health care and public education.”

Ms. Sims, who announced this week that teacher negotiators are prepared to return to the bargaining table “without preconditions,” said she intends to press home that message in today’s meeting with the Labour Minister.

“We will be saying, ‘Negotiate, talk, don’t legislate,’ ” the BCTF president told reporters.

“Legislation will not bring stability to the public education system and will damage teacher morale.”

In agreeing to meet with union representatives, Mr. de Jong emphasized that the government’s legislation, Bill 12, expected to pass later today, is not up for discussion.

But there could be talk about issues outside the teachers’ collective agreement, such as class size and devising a new negotiating structure, he said.

Mr. Sinclair said the labour movement supports the teachers in their struggle for a new contract.

He charged that the government is hardly a disinterested third party, since it has already mandated no wage increase for union members and used earlier legislation to take away their right to negotiate class size.

“The employers are given nothing to negotiate and then the government blames the teachers,” Mr. Sinclair said. “The employer in this situation is the government.”

A spokesperson for the B.C. Public School Employers Association, representing the province’s 60 school boards, said they will have no comment on the escalating showdown until they get official word about the teachers’ action.

However, the employers association will likely seek a declaration from the B.C. Labour Relations Board that the walkout is illegal, leaving the teachers and their union open to heavy fines.

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Thursday » October 6 » 2005

Teachers vote to walk out
Union says it won’t be bullied into legislated deal

David Carrigg, Elaine O’Connor and Ian Bailey
The Province

Thursday, October 06, 2005

CREDIT: Jason Payne, The Province
Teachers file into the Orpheum Theatre yesterday to vote on what action they should take in their labour dispute.
Defiant teachers said last night they will walk out on a strike tomorrow, and they won’t go back to work until they have a new contract.

“Teachers will mount picket lines on Friday and remain off the job until a settlement is reached,” said Jinny Sims, president of the B.C. Teachers Federation.

“We will not be bullied into another legislated contract.”

Sims said all the teachers who turned out to vote on what to do in the face of an imposed contract were aware of the consequences.

“There could be a range of consequences,” she said. “They could threaten to put me in prison.”

Teachers voted 90.5 per cent in favour of the union’s action plan, which calls for the strike.

Sims said teachers want class size and composition guarantees, bargaining rights and fair and reasonable salary increases.

She said she believes teachers have “lots of support out there. I want to reassure parents that teaches are going to work very hard to find solutions.

“After four years of legislative attacks by this government, teachers cannot stand by and allow another school year to pass while conditions deteriorate in classrooms, and morale plummets in staff rooms.”

In Victoria, Labour Minister Mike de Jong slammed the teachers for moving to break the law, suggesting they are setting a bad example for the children they are responsible for.

“If the union follows through on what they appear to be threatening today, it will be a violation of the labour code,” a grim de Jong said minutes after the union’s announcement.

“That’s hardly the kind of example you expect from people who are teaching kids.

“I would like to think that someone in Ms. Sims’ position, a position of responsibility, wouldn’t need to be told that breaking the law is unwise.”

He said the Liberal government is not planning any action except to pass Bill 12, which imposes the teachers’ expired contract until next June.

It will be up to employers, the B.C. Public School Employers Association, to take the teachers to the Labour Relations Board to protest their walkout and seek sanctions likely to include hefty fines, said de Jong.

“There are serious sanctions and I hope that both the union and their membership think very hard, both about the example they’re setting, and the sanctions that will accrue to them if they proceed.”

The government hopes to pass Bill 12 by tonight.

When de Jong introduced the legislation on Monday he said an industrial inquiry commissioner would be appointed to develop a new bargaining process before the imposed contract expires next June.

De Jong is to meet today with a labour delegation, including Sims, at his legislature office to try to find a way out of the impasse.

“I am going to ask her to reconsider,” he said.

The longer a strike goes, the more susceptible the union is to legal penalties. It could be fined if the LRB rules it is an illegal strike, and could leave the federation open to essential service lawsuits from parents seeking class-action compensation.

Since 1993, B.C. teachers have had a contract imposed four times by the NDP and the Liberals.

n The union was in court yesterday to set a date for arguments on whether the definition of a strike in B.C. labour law violates the Charter of Rights.

The union is seeking a judicial review of a B.C. Labour Relations Board decision that the definition is not unconstitutional.

The hearing, which involves the Hospital Employees Union siding with the teachers’ union in B.C. Supreme Court, is expected to start Oct. 24.

NDP House Leader Mike Farnworth would not comment last night on the union’s plans.

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.”
============================================================
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

Teachers make gains in the classroom
Although teachers have failed to get class sizes put back into their contracts, they’ve finally convinced almost everyone, including the government, that action is needed to help special needs students

Janet Steffenhagen
Vancouver Sun

September 24, 2005

B.C. teachers won a major victory in their battle for improved classroom conditions before they voted this week in favour of strike action to press their contract demands.

After years of talking, they have finally convinced almost everyone — including government — that something needs to be done about the challenges many face in teaching large classes with growing numbers of students who have special needs affecting learning and behaviour.

But their union has made zero progress in persuading its education partners or the Liberal government that the answer lies in a return to the situation that existed in 2002, when teacher contracts set the rules around class size and composition

That leaves the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, on the verge of a strike that could shut schools around the province next month, with no significant support for what it says is its number one bargaining priority.

The union insists it won’t sign a collective agreement unless it receives a written guarantee from the government that student learning conditions will be restored to 2002 levels.

Its members, who say they can’t provide quality education when they are balancing so many demands with little support, want those guarantees to be part of a new collective agreement.

They look back to 2002, when their contracts included class size caps, limits on the number of special-needs students in any one class and strict requirements and formulas to ensure every school had a certain number of specialty teachers, such as ESL teachers, special-education teachers, counsellors and librarians.

“Our working conditions and our students’ learning conditions have deteriorated incredibly since that time,” union president Jinny Sims said Friday in announcing plans for an October strike.

Not everyone accepts that.

Groups representing school trustees, principals and vice-principals and parent advisory councils acknowledge that class size, class composition and special-needs education need attention — especially in the Lower Mainland — but over all, they say the education system is better than it’s ever been.

They are sounding more positive than they have for several years because of an infusion this year of $150 million into the education system — money that government urged boards to spend on class size, special needs, school resources and libraries in recognition of concerns raised by teachers.

But the over-riding message from these groups is that decisions about student learning must be made at the local level, not at the bargaining table.

“School boards believe that the best decisions are made locally,” said Penny Tees, president of the B.C. School Trustees Association. “Schools and districts need to be responsive to their local communities.”

Both she and Tom Hierck, president of the B.C. Principals’ and Vice-Principals’ Association, say schools have never been better and they aren’t hankering for 2002.

“I think we’re doing a pretty fine job,” Hierck said. “Have we got it perfect yet? No, there’s always room for improvement. But fixed language generated either from Victoria or from union headquarters in Vancouver isn’t the recipe for success.”

School board chairs Linda McPhail of Richmond and Shawn Wilson of Surrey said they, too, think education has improved since 2002. Wilson said one reason is technology.

“Through the effective use of technology, teachers are addressing a number of important learning enhancements, including but not limited to, the gender gap, diverse learning styles, peer sharing and editing, safe and responsible interaction with students around the world and the ethical use of modern communications technology,” he said in an e-mail.

McPhail said districts have to set their own priorities because their challenges are different. For example, ESL is a major concern in Richmond, where two-thirds of the students have received or are receiving ESL assistance. Each month, Richmond receives 100 new ESL students, McPhail said.

While ESL is a shared concern in the Lower Mainland, it wouldn’t be a major issue in rural and remote districts.

Teachers argue that they know more about learning conditions in the classroom than principals or parents. And many insist the only way they can be sure their concerns are addressed in all B.C. schools is through strong contract language.

Without that language, there is a danger that promises and good intentions can be forgotten. “Principals will work around it, as they’re doing now,” said Surrey teacher Peter Bonell. “They will say one thing but mean another.”

Bonell also worries that some teachers, especially younger ones, might be afraid to speak out if learning conditions are decided through local discussions rather than through collective agreements.

“It’s happening now in the schools. A young teacher comes in, they’re worried about keeping their job and getting a permanent position. They will not kick up a fuss.”

But even the NDP has abandoned its call for the restoration of learning conditions in the teachers’ contract. Education critic John Horgan said it’s time to look for other ways to help teachers with their workload, because the government isn’t likely to budge.

Horgan backs the teachers when they talk about deteriorating classroom conditions, saying the government’s decision to relax the rules about class size and class composition is bound to lead to poorer outcomes. While students might continue to get high marks on tests, they won’t learn critical thinking skills from teachers who feel overwhelmed, he said.

“I support local autonomy for school boards, absolutely. I believe that people in communities have a better understanding of what those community needs are,” he said. “But at the same time, government has a responsibility and an obligation . . . to respond when their edicts are clearly not working on the ground.”

Education Minister Shirley Bond said she is taking action.

This year, for the first time since class-size caps were removed from the contract, the ministry will monitor class sizes in all grades in B.C. to ensure boards obey the rules that were placed in the B.C. School Act in 2002.

“I’m going to be asking school districts to report to us about their class size issues,” she said. “I want to make sure that boards are respecting the legislation . . . and if there are issues with larger class sizes in specific districts, we believe we should hold school districts accountable for that.”

Teachers should be consulted about class size and composition but not during bargaining, she said. “Parents and this government have said clearly that deciding class sizes is not simply up to the BCTF and the employer.

“Parents have a stake in that discussion [and] need to be participants. But if you [make] class size a negotiating issue, it leaves out those people who have a role to play.”

She said school planning councils, which include principals, teachers, parents and — in some cases — students, should have a key role in deciding class size and composition. Kim Howland, president of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils, said her members want those decisions to be made locally.

The B.C. School Act sets maximum class size numbers for primary grades, but requires only that school districts not exceed an average of 30 students in Grade 4-12 classes.

The BCTF says that “flexibility” has allowed schools to put far too many students in certain classes — especially science, English and social studies.

But Hierck said averaging allows schools to offer more opportunities than they were able to do in 2002.

For example, he said, a small school can now offer Physics 12 to a handful of students because a neighbouring school has more than 30 students in core academic courses.

Those trade-offs aren’t always recognized by those who complain about larger classes, he added.

To make those trade-offs more transparent and to ensure parents are supportive, Hierck suggested the ministry should change the law to require individual schools to meet class size averages rather than having district-wide averages. Horgan agreed that might be an improvement.

Cathie Camlie of the Learning Disabilities Association of B.C. said classroom conditions haven’t improved since 2002 for students with learning challenges, but nor were they good in 2002. S

he said the lack of attention to special-needs children in public schools is leading to the “privatization of special education,” with parents who can afford it hiring special tutors to help their children.

Her main complaint about Liberal changes to education is the de-targeting of special-education funds.

When school boards no longer received money targeted for special needs, many stopped identifying those children, she said. “That was especially true for gifted kids,” she said. “It virtually wiped out the identification of gifted kids.”

But her organization’s chief concern is the lack of training for teachers in dealing with special needs. “If anyone wants to do one thing to help kids with exceptionalities it’s teacher training,” she said, noting that a BCTF study several years ago found 40 per cent of teachers in Coquitlam and Nanaimo felt they were ill-prepared to deal with special-needs children.

Rita Irwin, associate dean of teacher education at the University of B.C., said her big regret about changes between 2002 and 2005 is the loss of art education.

“If you talk about the quality of schools when it comes to the arts, it’s definitely gone down,” she said.

“But if you’re talking to the average parent who is really concerned about numeracy and literacy, then the students are probably getting a pretty comparable [experience].”

Paul Shaker, the education dean at Simon Fraser University, who has worked in four countries and five American states, said he’s encouraged by the quality of B.C. schools. But he said there is room for improvement, especially in areas such as fine arts, special needs and ESL that tend to be cut when resources are tight.

“I don’t think the system is saturated with money by any means. Obviously there’s enough money in the system to do a very good job because a very good job is being done. But a better job could be done.”

jsteffenhagen@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2005

Mickey Z has a nice piece in MRZine remembering the “Lowell Mills Girls” and the movement for a ten-hour workday. Be sure to check the links.

“In vain do I try to soar in fancy and imagination above the dull reality around me but beyond the roof of the factory I cannot rise.” — anonymous Lowell Mill worker, 1826

Lowell, Massachusetts was named after the wealthy Lowell family. They owned numerous textile mills, which attracted the unmarried daughters of New England farmers. These young girls worked in the mills and lived in supervised dormitories. On average, a Lowell Mill Girl worked for three years before leaving to marry. Living and working together often forged a camaraderie that would later find an unexpected outlet.

What had the potential to become a relatively agreeable system for all involved was predictably exploited for mill owners’ gain. The young workers toiled under poor conditions for long hours only to return to dormitories that offered strict dress codes, lousy meals, and were ruled by matrons with an iron fist.In response, the Lowell mill workers — some as young as eleven — did something revolutionary: the tight-knit group of girls and women organized a union. They marched and demonstrated against a 15 percent cut in their wages and for better conditions . . . including the institution of a ten-hour workday. They started newspapers. They proclaimed: “Union is power.” They went on
strike.

As the movement spread through other Massachusetts mill towns, some 500 workers united to form the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) in 1844 . . . the first organization of American working women to bargain collectively for better conditions and higher pay. Sarah Bagley was named the LFLRA’s first president and she promptly led a petition-drive that forced the Massachusetts legislature to investigate conditions in the mills. Bagley not only fought to improve physical conditions, she argued that the female workers “lacked sufficient time to improve their minds,” something
she considered “essential for laborers in a republic.”

As with many revolutionary notions, the LFLRA met much opposition in their efforts. Despite their inability to secure the specific changes they demanded, the Lowell Mill Girls laid a foundation for female involvement and leadership in the soon-to-explode American labor movement and they continue to inspire those who stand against injustice today.

Mickey Z. is the author of several books including the soon-to-be-released There Is No Good War: The Myths of World War II (Vox Pop) and 50 American Revolutions You’re Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism (Disinformation Books). This essay was excerpted from 50 American Revolutions You’re Not Supposed to Know. He can be found on the Web at .
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MRZine: Labor day poses hard questions

It’s impossible to celebrate Labor Day 2005 without asking some hard questions: How organized is “organized” labor? How much of a movement is the labor “movement”? The last six weeks have torn away whatever shreds of clothing the emperor might have been wearing. We can deny the crisis no longer.

Here’s a Labor Day cartoon from the cultural absurdists at HomeStarRunner.com.

Check out the h*r wiki for everything you wanted to know (or not) about Strong Bad and the gang.

In his essay The AFL-CIO and the Iraq War, published by Rebelion.org he argues the Iraq War resolution approved at the AFL-CIO’s latest convention, apart from an ambiguous phrase thrown in to pacify a few dissidents, remained true to its history of supporting imperial wars and tyranny while continuing to lose members and loyalties in the US for its efforts.

[James Petras has worked with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement for the last eleven years in addition to his work with the unemployed workers’ movement in Argentina. He is coauthor, with Henry Veltmeyer, of Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the 21st Century (Zed Books, 2001), which won the 2002 Kenny Prize in Marxist & Labour/Left Studies. He is also author of a collection of short stories, Andando por el mundo (Altamira Publishing Group, 2001).]The AFL-CIO and the Iraq war
James Petras
Rebeli

Here’s a link about a day of action (September 24) by US Labor Against the War and other groups, including: United for Peace and International Answer.