Vancouver Sun: <a href=”http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=7813e2a2-187d-4cfd-bbb0-ec679d555202″
Jonathan Fowlie
Vancouver Sun, with files from Canadian Press
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
B.C. teachers will announce today what action they will take in response to a government-imposed contract settlement, after they have considered and voted on so-far-undisclosed recommendations from their union executive.
“Our members are reeling under the latest injustice — the attack on their rights, on their professionalism and on their professional responsibilities,” B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Jinny Sims said, referring to the government’s decision to impose a zero-wage-increase contract on the province’s 42,000 public school teachers.
“They are looking at all the options that are open to them, and they will have made a decision by [Wednesday] evening,” Sims told a Tuesday-afternoon press conference.
She said the BCTF will announce its plans tonight at about 7:30 p.m., once all teachers have voted on what to do next.
In meetings across the province Tuesday night and tonight, the teachers are considering recommendations from the BCTF executive about possible responses to the government’s move.
Sims refused Tuesday to disclose or discuss the executive recommendations, noting they could change because teachers have the option of amending them.
“We have very clear democratic processes; our members have to make a decision before I make the announcement,” she said.
In 2002, teachers held a day of protest in response to the last imposed settlement, though Sims would not say Tuesday if such an action was an option this time around.
Sims said she has asked the province for another chance to reach an agreement at the bargaining table.
“We urge this government to send representatives to sit down with teachers,” she said. “We believe there is a solution possible and we’re willing to go to the table without any preconditions.”
B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair, who with several other labour representatives joined Sims at the news conference, said federation members “unanimously support” the BCTF.
He said he wants a meeting with Labour Minister Mike de Jong and Premier Gordon Campbell to discuss the matter.
Sims said she would also not discuss what lies ahead, or say how much notice the union would give parents in the event of job action, promising only that teachers would be in classrooms across the province for school today.
The provincial Liberal government announced on Monday it will impose a settlement on teachers through legislation that will extend the existing contract to June 30, 2006, effectively quashing the teachers’ right to strike.
Teachers had been asking for a 15-per-cent increase over three years, but the new legislation means they are facing a wage freeze until next June.
BCTF executive members gathered in Vancouver for emergency meetings Monday night and Tuesday morning. B.C. Fed members also met both days, and said they will meet again on Thursday once it is clear what teachers have decided.
The president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation also spoke out against the B.C. government on Tuesday, and backed teachers in the dispute.
“We are staunchly opposed and over 210,000 teachers across Canada are united with their B.C. colleagues in this battle,” said Winston Carter, president of the federation and a school administrator in Gander, Nfld.
This is the fourth time since 1993 that NDP and Liberal governments have imposed settlements in teacher negotiations.
Calling the bargaining system “broke,” de Jong said on Monday his government will create a commission to develop a new bargaining system between teachers and their employer, the B.C. Public School Employers Association.
During negotiations, the two sides met 35 times and did not agree on a single issue. They were also hundreds of millions of dollars apart.
jfowlie@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
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