BC Teachers strike update

The Globe and Mail:

BC teachers strike; parents told to keep children home
More than half a million British Columbia public school students were asked to stay home Friday after the province’s teachers launched a wildcat strike to protest government plans to impose a two-year contract on them.

What can they do to 40,000 teachers; School employers go to court, union stands firm in first full day of illegal strike
Teachers walked the picket lines, the NDP filibustered in Victoria and the school employers went to court yesterday in the first day of an illegal strike by the province’s 42,000 teachers.

BC Notebook: Collective bargaining is a difficult, sophisticated art
‘Ahem!” That’s the sound of an aging, former labour reporter — me –getting ready to weigh in on the fractious teachers’ dispute.

Campbell’s government helped create mess for BC’s teachers
In theory, governments do not give in to hostage takers. Negotiate, yes. Capitulate, no. If you give in to one group it only encourages others.

Vancouver Sun:

Teachers’ strike to last at least to Tuesday; Both sides approach LRB over its ruling that walkout is illegal
Students at B.C.’s public schools are expected to remain out of classes Tuesday as striking teachers and their government employers continue legal manoeuvers in support of their opposing positions.B.C. teachers strike; parents told to keep children home
By TERRY WEBER
Friday, October 7, 2005 Posted at 2:17 PM EDT
Globe and Mail Update

More than half a million British Columbia public school students were asked to stay home Friday after the province’s teachers launched a wildcat strike to protest government plans to impose a two-year contract on them.

Web sites for school districts around the province Friday said that, although in many cases schools would remain open, classes would be cancelled and proper supervision would likely not be available for students.

“”Teachers are on strike,” The Vancouver School Board said.

“The Vancouver School Board cannot provide adequate supervision at its school facilities and as a result, parents [or] guardians are advised to keep their children at home until teachers return to the classroom.”

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Similar messages were posted for school boards in other regions of the province.

Picket lines went up around B.C. public schools Friday after the 42,000 members of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation voted 90.5 per cent to stage a protest against provincial legislation that would impose a two-year contract on teachers, providing no wage increase and offering what they say is no improvement in working conditions.

Televised images showed educators carrying pickets even before the sun came up.

The job action came despite an 11th-hour ruling from the B.C. Labour Relations Board, which deemed the strike illegal.

In an interim order, the labour board told the union to halt strike plans and urged teachers to resume their duties and work schedules immediately.

B.C. Teachers Federation president Jinny Sims said the union would ask the Labour Relations Board to re-consider the ruling, calling it flawed.

The decision followed meetings between labour officials and B.C. Labour Minister Mike de Jong earlier Thursday, which failed to resolve the dispute.

The B.C. legislature, meanwhile, was continuing a marathon sitting Friday to debate the controversial legislation imposing the teachers’ contract. The bill has yet to get second reading. Mr. de Jong has suggested the house will sit as long as it takes to pass the bill.

The strike affects about 600,000 students. Unionized support workers at B.C. schools were also expected to honour the picket lines.

Teachers and school boards began provincewide bargaining in 1993 and haven’t since been able to reach an agreement without provincial government intervention.

With Canadian Press

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The Globe and Mail
‘What can they do to 40,000 teachers?’
School employers go to court, union stands firm in first full day of illegal strike
By PETTI FONG
Saturday, October 8, 2005 Page S3

VANCOUVER — Teachers walked the picket lines, the NDP filibustered in Victoria and the school employers went to court yesterday in the first day of an illegal strike by the province’s 42,000 teachers.

The provincial Liberals, after waiting out an all-night delay tactic by the NDP, passed the legislation that imposed a settlement on the province’s teachers, who have been without a contract since July, 2004.

The school employers went to B.C. Supreme Court late yesterday to have the Labour Relations Board ruling that found the strike illegal enforced, which would result in fines for picketing.

The teachers are appealing the LRB ruling.

“We have to stand up to bad laws,” said Libby Griffin, a teacher at inner-city elementary school Florence Nightingale. “We will face the consequences if they come. What can they do to 40,000 teachers?”

The long-simmering dispute between teachers and the provincial government erupted into full-scale job action after what many teachers called an insulting challenge to their democratic rights when the Liberals introduced legislation imposing a contract.

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation already had an 88-per-cent strike vote, but after the government ordered an end to the dispute, another vote was organized for teachers to decide whether to defy that legislation. Just over 90 per cent voted in favour of setting up pickets.

Labour Minister Mike de Jong said the situation exists because the teachers’ employers, the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association, is in charge of negotiating a contract, but the funding agent is the province.

“So there is this tension and this link that exists whereby an employer charged with negotiating a contract and fulfilling the terms of that contract has to take very serious account of funds that it has little control over the flow of,” said Mr. de Jong in the legislature yesterday. “As the funding agent, the provincial government of the day has a very significant role. If you look at the recent history of this, much of the tension that has characterized these negotiations is attributable to that division or that divide, in my view at least.”

Mr. de Jong said the bill ordering teachers back is necessary because after days of debate, it has become clear that free collective bargaining will not achieve an agreement.

NDP education critic John Horgan said the government could solve the problem by increasing funding for teachers.

“The Minister of Finance can vary the mandate of BCPSEA by providing resources to provide wage increases for educators in British Columbia. That is something that can happen today,” he said. “It could have happened before this bill. It should have happened before this bill.”

The BCTF has vowed to stay off the job until teachers agree to a settlement, which means picket lines will likely be up again on Tuesday after the Thanksgiving holiday.

BCTF president Jinny Sims said she’s forgoing her long weekend at home in Nanaimo and staying in Vancouver to put more pressure on the government to resume negotiations.

Ms. Sims scoffed at the government’s appointment of labour mediator Vince Ready to look at new bargaining structures for teachers and school employers.

“Right now, the trust we have in this government’s ability to come up with structures to meet our needs is very low,” she said. “You don’t look for long-term solution in the middle of a crisis. In the middle of a crisis, you deal with the crisis.”

Kim Howland, president of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils, also urged that a long-term and more permanent solution be found between the school employers and teachers.

The BCTF wants to negotiate classroom composition, wages and resources. The government does not want class size in the collective bargaining and will not budge from the 0-per-cent wage increase it has given other public-sector workers.

Teacher Shanda Stirk, who was on the picket line yesterday, said she’s willing to compromise. While a wage increase is needed, a bigger priority is limiting class sizes and providing better resources, she said.

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B.C. NOTEBOOK
Collective bargaining is a difficult, sophisticated art
By ROD MICKLEBURGH
Saturday, October 8, 2005 Page S3

‘Ahem!” That’s the sound of an aging, former labour reporter — me –getting ready to weigh in on the fractious teachers’ dispute.

Here goes.

First, a memo to both sides. Be very, very careful. This is not a time for grandstanding about the need to respect the law nor about a willingness to defy the law. It is a time for leadership, to accept that solutions sometimes involve pain, the hurt of having to abandon heartfelt positions.

But the government should understand that when the people who teach our children feel so aggrieved they vote more than 90 per

It is not enough to demand that teachers obey the law. There is a history to this dispute. The government has been targeting teachers and their union, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, since the Liberals took office in 2001.

The Liberals have placed the teachers under essential-services laws (the only government in Canada to do so), taken away their right to negotiate classroom conditions and, now, with Bill 12, imposed two successive contracts on them by government fiat.

None of this gets the BCTF off the hook, however.

The tough organization has yet to demonstrate that it knows how to compromise realistically and close a deal. Collective bargaining is a difficult, sophisticated art where you achieve what is achievable and move on. It is more than issuing demands, no matter how justified.

The teachers are right when they say this dispute needs a solution. One hopes they will recognize that solution if it comes along.

Late-night crooner

The NDP’s exhausting legislative filibuster against Bill 12 had its moments. The highlight, or maybe the lowlight, may have been Corky Evans’ effort to sing the last verse of Woody Guthrie’s well-known ballad Pretty Boy Floyd some time after 5 a.m.

The homespun New Democrat MLA from Nelson serenaded bleary-eyed legislators in his croaking rasp: “Now, as through this world I’ve rambled, I’ve met lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a shotgun, and some with a fountain pen.”

Shortly after that, the legislative lights went out.

Earlier, fresh-faced Gregor Robertson of the NDP, he of Happy Planet juice fame, had a tough grammatical start to his speech.

Mr. Robertson thanked all the teachers “who got me here . . . through my youth, through my formative years, who inspired me, who motivated me, who raised me up good.”

Well, at least he didn’t say “real good.”

Dodging the question

It’s a bit disappointing to see the inestimable Carole Taylor turn into just another politician.

The NDP had a simple, straightforward question for the B.C. Finance Minister: How much did the government pay for the full-page ads extolling Bill 12 that appeared in newspapers across the province the morning after the bill was introduced?

Easy, right? Apparently not. Ms. Taylor said she could not give an answer until public accounts are presented eight months from now, or just about the time the teachers’ newly imposed contract is due to expire.

No mystery why Ms. Taylor fudged. The Liberals know the NDP would jump on the figure and accuse the government of having money for propaganda but not for teacher-librarians, etc.

But it was a legitimate question and deserved better.

Corporate courage?

What was all that fuss about Concert Properties’ alleged conflict of interest in expressing official interest to build the first phase of the Olympic Village as part of the Southeast False Creek Project?

Concert principal Jack Poole is also chairman of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), but the entire project, including selecting the developer, is now the city’s responsibility, not VANOC’s.

Concert’s interest was hardly secret. The developer was one of five firms listed in a city press release the day before the story was headlined in the newspapers. Rather than dodging the issue, the press release even referred to the conflict-of-interest issue, arguing it would not apply because the city had taken over the project.

When the political fur began to fly the next day, however, Concert dropped out. So much for corporate courage.

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The Globe and Mail

Campbell’s government helped create mess for B.C.’s teachers

By GARY MASON
Saturday, October 8, 2005 Page A14

VICTORIA — In theory, governments do not give in to hostage takers. Negotiate, yes. Capitulate, no. If you give in to one group it only encourages others.

So it will be interesting to see how the B.C. government deals with the unusual hostage crisis it has on its hands right now. The province’s 42,000 teachers have walked off the job illegally and have taken more than a half million students with them.

It is difficult to see how the B.C. Teachers’ Federation wins this one. As mentioned, governments, in principle, have not been known to back down from battles with groups that have resorted to breaking the law to achieve their demands.

First, it establishes a terrible precedent and, secondly and more importantly, it undermines and eats away at the government’s credibility with its broader citizenry.

The BCTF has other problems, too.

Firstly, its chief political ally, the New Democratic Party, is against the walkout. NDP Leader Carole James said this week that every member of the public is expected to obey the law and teachers are no different.

On top of that, both Ms. James and her party’s education critic, John Horgan, acknowledged this week that B.C. has the best education system in North America. If that’s the case, what’s all the fuss about?

The BCTF is counting on the support of its brothers and sisters in other unions, both private and public sector. And while the leaders of those unions are saying all the right things now, you have to wonder how much support the rank and file have for a group that is generally viewed to be well-paid, has its summers off and enjoys one of the best pension plans in the country.

Teachers are also fighting a zero-per-cent wage offer for last year and this year that other public-sector unions have accepted. Are those workers who have swallowed zero going to refuse to cross picket lines and possibly lose wages to support a group that won’t? Members of other unions also have children in school and will, like most parents, have to make alternative child-care arrangements for each day the strikes drags on. Whatever sympathy they have for the teachers will quickly dissipate amid the frustration of having to use up vacation time to stay home with the kids.

The first polls are out and, not surprisingly, they show little support for the illegal job action. While the public is angry with the government for once again imposing a contract on a group it feels has legitimate issues, it does not believe breaking the law is the answer.

This is another problem the BCTF has.

Finally, there is the financial crunch the union will face when it begins getting hit with mounting fines for each day teachers remain off the job in defiance of the law. It’s a bill that could quickly reach hundreds of thousands of dollars. Where will that money come from? With so much going against the teachers, it would seem all the government has to do is wait for them to crumble. But that’s not quite the case.

While the public has no time for illegal job action, it does believe teachers have legitimate grievances that need to be addressed. Those issues centre on class size and class composition, which concerns the number of children with challenges, be they physical, mental or otherwise, who are in general classroom settings.

These two areas became flashpoints when provisions around them were stripped from the teachers’ contract by the Liberals in 2002. Despite knowing that problems associated with these areas were not going away, the Liberals did nothing about them. And so, to some extent, the government brought the current situation on itself.

The government’s decision to hammer the teachers once again with a legislated contract has done nothing to dispel its sometimes dogmatic, imperious and, frankly, illiberal image. An image the Liberals are desperate to change before the next election when they will face a rejuvenated NDP led by an increasingly appealing leader carving out her own image as a passionate conciliator.

For this reason I believe the Liberals will assist the BCTF with an exit strategy of some sort. That is, a way for teachers to put down the picket signs while saving face. But how does the government do this without acceding to the demands of a group of lawbreakers? Perhaps it comes in the form of a promise — but not a firm guarantee in terms of numbers — to address the class size and class composition issues in a real way. Maybe the matter is handed over to a non-partisan committee to investigate with any agreed-upon findings being part of the next contract, which will be up at the end of the school year.

I’m not sure if that’s the answer, but the Liberals have to do something. After all, they helped create this mess.

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The Vancouver Sun

Teachers’ strike to last at least to Tuesday
Both sides approach LRB over its ruling that walkout is illegal

Darah Hansen and Camille Bains
Vancouver Sun and Canadian Press; with files from Maurice Bridge and Jenny Lee, Vancouver Sun; with Jeff Rud, CanWest News Service

October 8, 2005

A group of Grade 10 students at Vancouver’s Templeton secondary school joined teachers on the picket line to support their strike.
To listen to story, click link .

Students at B.C.’s public schools are expected to remain out of classes Tuesday as striking teachers and their government employers continue legal manoeuvers in support of their opposing positions.

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation executive asked the Labour Relations Board early Friday to reconsider a ruling that declared their strike illegal. That application is scheduled to be considered by the board Tuesday.

Sunday morning, meanwhile, the B.C. Supreme Court will convene to consider an application filed Friday by the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association that asks the court to enforce the LRB ruling, in an attempt to force the province’s 42,000 teachers back to work.

Picket lines went up at daybreak Friday — the first day of a walkout that kept more than 600,000 students from classes.

Teachers are angry with legislation that freezes their wages and extends their contract until next June. The legislation was passed Friday afternoon after an overnight debate in the B.C. Legislature.

Premier Gordon Campbell said the teachers’ job action is illegal and has been sanctioned by their union.

“Every teacher will make their decision about whether they want to follow the direction of their union with regard to whether they’re going to take illegal action or not,” Campbell said.

“There’ll be sanctions for those actions and I think it’s a shame.”

Teachers on the picket line Friday said public support for the strike was strong.

“Today, the honking has been phenomenal, and then someone will quietly walk by and say, ‘Thank you very much,'” said Libby Griffin, a music and Grade 3 teacher at Florence Nightingale elementary in East Vancouver.

“And last night we just happened to have a meet-the-teacher night at our school and we had parents who were in tears because they felt that we were doing such a fine job with their children.”

At Sir Charles Tupper secondary in Vancouver, two Grade 9 students showed up on the picket line to sing a song of support for their teachers.

“They [teachers] are doing all they can to help get us back in school so we can get a better education,” said student Megan Solis.

Cab driver Nick Dehal said that although his kids are no longer in school, he supports teachers “150 per cent.”

“They are the nation-builders and if (Premier) Gordon Campbell has surplus money, he should give it to them,” he said.

Tuesday, however, could be a different story as working parents of young children face a potential child-care crunch. In Vancouver, child-care providers expect space to be at a premium.

Sports activities on school fields this weekend are scheduled to go ahead as usual, but activities such as adult education classes in centres attached to some schools could be affected by the strike.

B.C. labour leaders rallied on the picket line at Van Tech high school in Vancouver Friday morning. BCTF president Jinny Sims, who later attended at a regular meeting of the executive council of the B.C. Federation of Labour, said the labour movement stands firmly behind the federation.

“I’m so proud of our members,” she said. “They’re determined, they’re resolved and they know that they are taking a stand against an unjust piece of legislation.”

In a separate news conference held later outside an elementary school, Sims said teachers won’t apologize for breaking the law, and compared their stand to the women’s suffrage movement and the fight for aboriginal rights.

“Sometimes our government’s laws are just wrong and they’re unjust and that’s when it’s up to the citizens to take a stand and say, ‘Enough is enough, these are unjust laws and we’re not going to take it any more,'” she said.

Sims said it is up to provincial government to make the next move. “There’s no change from our perspective,” Sims said late Friday. “We’re still waiting to hear back from government.”

Labour federation president Jim Sinclair agreed the next move is up to the province.

“I think all of British Columbia is looking to Victoria, because I think most of us understand that if Victoria doesn’t come to the table over the weekend, then next week doesn’t look very good,” he said.

Labour Minister Mike de Jong told reporters in Victoria Friday he wasn’t planning to meet with the teachers’ union this weekend.

“I know teachers are angry. I know they are upset when a contract is derived out of a process like this,” 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.”

The teachers’ union could be hit with steep fines and its executive members could even be threatened with jail time over the walkout should the B.C. Supreme Court enforce the LRB ruling.

Teachers said they are prepared to take what comes.

“What can they do to 40,000 teachers?” said Shanda Stirk, a resource teacher at Florence Nightingale elementary. “That’s why we stand united and we’re all together and we’ll face the consequences if they come.”

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

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.

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

dahansen@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2005