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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