The Globe and Mail: Government fact-finder says teachers deal won’t happen
VANCOUVER — B.C. teachers and the province’s school boards have failed to agree on a single item in their contract talks, leaving no prospect for a negotiated settlement, a government-appointed fact-finder said yesterday.
The report to the Labour Minister by Rick Connolly clears the way for the provincial government to legislate a settlement, as it has done four times since 1994.Labour Minister Mike de Jong said neither history nor recent talks between the two sides give any reason for optimism.
“The trend over the last decade and a half is of two parties that seem singularly incapable of negotiating themselves to an agreement,” Mr. de Jong said. “It’s about a negotiating process that you can say is broken, but for something to be broken, it has to have worked in the first place, and I don’t think this process has ever worked.”
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Mr. Connolly’s report said the compensation demands and expectations of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, even with room for bargaining, far exceed any opportunity for resolution within the current mandate.
The government has not moved from its position of zero wage increases and allowing class sizes back into the collective agreement. During the last round of bargaining, the government imposed a 7.5-per-cent wage increase over three years, but removed from bargaining the issue of class size and composition.
Last week, the teachers voted almost 90 per cent in favour of giving their union a strike mandate, and began limited job action earlier this week by stopping teacher supervision in playgrounds.
They plan to start rotating strikes on Oct. 11 and a full-scale strike Oct. 24.
BCTF president Jinny Sims said legislating an end to the dispute would give pupils the wrong lesson that governments can attack the people who teach them.
“We’ve always said we don’t want to come with preconditions, and governments shouldn’t come with preconditions,” Ms. Sims said. “No one finds solutions when they dig tunnels.”
Kim Howland, who represents parents in the government-funded BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils, called the fact-finder’s report disappointing because it failed to provide details of why the two sides remain far apart.
“We’re not surprised at the conclusion that they are so far apart,” she said. “Parents still want to see uninterrupted education and whatever the decision is for the government to legislate or not legislate back, the question is, what is that going to do with morale.”
Vancouver school board vice-chair Allan Wong said while the board still urges the government to allow negotiations to continue, the results from the fact-finder report mean that is unlikely.
“Every time there’s an imposed settlement, the relationship with the people in the school system is affected adversely and each time there is a need to rebuild the relationship,” he said. “No matter what, we end up at the same stage and I’m pessimistic about the outcome, but I’m still urging the government to allow for a negotiated settlement.”
No talks between teachers and the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association, the bargaining unit for the government, are scheduled.
Hugh Finlayson, executive director of the association, said the fact-finder properly characterized the distance between the parties.
“The challenge for the government is they have to make an assessment where, given the passage of time and the pressure of job action, if a timely resolution is possible in the end of the day,” he said.
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