The Vancouver Sun:
Teachers stay off job as court eyes penalities
Striking teachers are expected to keep B.C. public schools closed for a fourth day today as the B.C. Supreme Court conducts a special hearing to consider penalties for a union that has refused to obey the law.
Editorial: Teachers, government must find way to stop current madness
British Columbia’s 600,000 public school students are being trampled underfoot as the provincial government and the B.C. Teachers’ Federation continue their battle for the moral high ground.
The Globe and Mail
School boards expected to push for heavy fiines
Four days into an illegal strike that has shut down the province’s public school system, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation faces its potential punisher today in B.C. Supreme Court.
Times Colonist (Victoria):
Scab teachers on Vancouver Island
Some teachers have decided to defy their union and are crossing picket lines to return to work. For the past three work days, Carl Ratsoy has marked tests, checked equipment for an experiment and developed lesson plans — all standard stuff for the Reynolds Secondary physics teacher.
CBC:
Education ministers urges teachers to scab
With 42,000 teachers in British Columbia in the third day of an illegal strike, the province’s education minister says her government will try to protect teachers who defy their union and return to the classroom.
CTV
Striking BC techers’union facing penalties
The illegal strike by British Columbia’s public school teachers shows no sign of being resolved — despite a court order to return to the classroom.Teachers stay off job as court eyes penalties
Janet Steffenhagen
Vancouver Sun
October 13, 2005
Striking teachers are expected to keep B.C. public schools closed for a fourth day today as the B.C. Supreme Court conducts a special hearing to consider penalties for a union that has refused to obey the law.
Labour specialists said Wednesday they were anticipating a hefty fine for the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, but it wasn’t clear what effect that would have since the union has vowed to continue picketing until its contract demands are met.
Ken Thornicroft, a labour relations expert at the University of Victoria, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the court imposed a fine of $250,000 a day, which could be ratcheted up if the union’s defiance continues.
“Sometimes the judges get testy when their authority is ignored,” added Mark Thompson, a labour relations professor at the University of B.C. “When a union goes head-to-head against a government, the union loses one way or another.”
The last time B.C. Supreme Court fined a union for an illegal strike was in 2004, when the Hospital Employees’ Union staged a three-day walkout. But that union, unlike the BCTF, had ended its strike before it was fined.
BCTF president Jinny Sims has said teachers won’t return to the classroom until they have approved a new contract that includes classroom improvements, a wage hike and restoration of full bargaining rights. During bargaining, the teachers requested a 15-per-cent wage increase over three years.
Only a small number of the union’s 42,000 members were crossing picket lines this week. At Reynolds secondary in Victoria, seven teachers were in their classrooms, according to one of them, Ed Stephenson.
In an interview, Stephenson admitted he has never been a union activist but said he wouldn’t cross a legal picket line. The reason he is working now is because the B.C. Labour Relations Board has declared the strike illegal, he said.
“It’s been a choice of conscience,” said Stephenson, a teacher for 30 years. He said the seven teachers have had no trouble with pickets because the school community is respectful of differences of opinions.
The labour relations board on Wednesday confirmed its ruling that the strike is illegal, after considering an appeal from the union.
As a result of the strike, 25,000 support workers who are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) are also off the job, even though some are covered by contracts that provided no wage increase.
“Times are better now,” explained the union’s B.C. president Barry O’Neill, pointing to the government’s surplus.
The Liberals have said no public sector union — including the BCTF — will get a wage increase before 2006.
CUPE workers are being paid $10 a day in strike pay, although that will increase if the feud continues beyond 10 days. Teachers receive $50 a day.
The B.C. Public School Employers’ Association says school boards are saving a total of $14 million a day as a result of the job action, and Education Minister Shirley Bond said boards may spend that money in their districts.
CUPE’s O’Neill said the resolve of teachers and support workers is strong. He said if a general strike was to happen, it would likely be spontaneous rather than organized through a union vote.
But Thornicroft said he doesn’t think teachers will get that kind of backing from other unions. “It’s wide but it’s thin,” he said of the support Wednesday.
Both Thornicroft and Thompson said the BCTF’s strategy is a mystery. “When you get into a dispute like this, you always have to have an exit strategy and I don’t know what their exit strategy is,” Thompson said.
Thornicroft said continued defiance could bankrupt the union or bring criminal contempt charges rather than just the civil proceedings now underway.
Criminal contempt could mean a jail term for Sims, although the last time that happened in B.C. was in 1967. The most celebrated example Canada-wide was in 1980 when Jean-Claude Parrot, then leader of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, was jailed for two months.
Thompson said jail terms usually only inflame a labour situation, but escalating fines or fines against individuals have been used in other jurisdictions to force unions to return to work.
“This is kind of a crisis in a democratic society. It really is,” said Thompson. “We’re not in the habit of treating law-abiding citizens badly in our society and by and large [teachers] do obey the law. So you have to try to balance those things.”
jsteffenhagen@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Teachers, government must find a way to halt the current madness
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, October 13, 2005
British Columbia’s 600,000 public school students are being trampled underfoot as the provincial government and the B.C. Teachers’ Federation continue their battle for the moral high ground.
After nearly a week without school, both sides are rapidly losing credibility in their claims to be acting in the best interest of students.
BCTF president Jinny Sims says teachers are willing to stay out on their illegal strike “as long as it takes” to achieve a fair agreement. She has climbed out on a tall ledge with no exit strategy and has taken B.C.’s 40,000 teachers with her.
Labour Minister Mike de Jong says the dispute is out of his hands as long as the teachers continue breaking the law. He echoes the view of Premier Gordon Campbell, who also clings to the position that since his government imposed a contract on teachers there is nothing to negotiate.
Both the government and the BCTF are wrong.
The government is responsible for delivering public education. As long as the schools are closed, the government is failing to deliver that vital service. It cannot duck that responsibility by simply blaming the teachers.
Nor does the fact that the strike is illegal obviate the need for de Jong and his cabinet colleagues to start talking to teachers about how to get them back into the classroom.
Sims, in defending the BCTF, cites the doctrine of civil disobedience, which, in the tradition of Gandhi and the American civil rights movement, argues that people have the moral right and sometimes the moral duty to defy unjust laws.
That is her choice, and today the BCTF may learn just how expensive a choice that can be as the B.C. Supreme Court rules on what penalty to impose after finding the union in contempt of court.
No doubt it will be severe, as it should be. The rule of law must be protected from those who would willfully put themselves above it.
But as we saw with the illegal strike by the Hospital Employees Union, the legal process is separate from the negotiations that will eventually have to be held between teachers and the government to get children back into their classrooms.
Education Minister Shirley Bond seems to believe the way to do that is to get enough teachers to defy their union. By the time that happens, and there is no reason to believe it will, enormous damage will already have been inflicted on students and our school system.
The courts will eventually wear down the BCTF. The union has the resources, however, to endure several million dollars in fines and, from her rhetoric, it sounds like Sims may be prepared to go to jail. In the meantime, however, thousands of children will have suffered unrecoverable losses.
Many students will do just fine, even if the strike were to go on for weeks. Others, including those who were already struggling with school or who can’t count on much help at home, might never catch up this year.
Every day counts. High school students on the semester system who face provincial exams are losing the equivalent of two days for every day schools remain closed.
This madness has to end.
The government must start talking to teachers. It won’t be easy. They are continents apart, hostile and suspicious of each other’s motives. But without dialogue, the gulf between them will never be bridged.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
School boards expected to push for heavy fines
B.C. Supreme Court to consider sanctions against union, teachers on illegal strike
By ROD MICKLEBURGH
Thursday, October 13, 2005 Page S3
VANCOUVER — Four days into an illegal strike that has shut down the province’s public school system, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation faces its potential punisher today in B.C. Supreme Court.
Judge Brenda Brown, who found the BCTF guilty of contempt of court last Sunday for defying a back-to-work order, is scheduled to hear arguments this morning on what sanctions should be applied to the teachers and their union.
School boards are expected to press for the BCTF to be hit with heavy fines, particularly in light of the fact the teachers’ strike is continuing and they have vowed not to return to work without a negotiated settlement.
The government is just as firm that there is nothing to negotiate because a new contract has already been imposed on the teachers by Bill 12, passed by the Liberal majority in the legislature late last week after an all-night filibuster by the NDP.
The BCTF has been told to have its chief financial officer in court to provide information on the union’s considerable assets.
Mark Thompson, an industrial relations expert at the University of British Columbia, said the union could face severe penalties for its illegal job action.
“The courts don’t like to get involved in labour disputes if they can help it, but when they are defied, they can get very cross and make the union pay in various ways,” Prof. Thompson said.
The last B.C. union to defy government legislation, the Hospital Employees Union, was fined $150,000 for a three-day illegal strike. But that strike had ended by the time of the court’s decision.
On the eve of today’s court hearing, however, BCTF president Jinny Sims said there is no wavering in the teachers’ commitment to stand up against Bill 12 and the loss of their right to negotiate a new collective agreement.
“We are determined and resolved,” she said. “There is always apprehension when the courts are involved, because we are law-abiding citizens.
“At the same time, we knew when we took our stand that there were going to be consequences. And we are prepared for those consequences.”
Teachers have tried to play by the rules, but the government keeps changing them, Ms. Sims said.
“So for us, as teachers, not to fight back, not to resist, is to say that the government can do whatever they want to the teachers of this province.
“You can’t operate as a professional and look yourself in the eye and live with the kind of rulings this government has meted out on teachers,” she said.
Ms. Sims also clarified the number of teachers who are off the job, previously reported as 42,000. That was an old number, she said. Union membership has fallen in recent years to about 38,000.
In the union’s hastily scheduled vote last week to defy Bill 12, a total of 22,693 teachers voted 90.5 per cent in favour of walking out, about 9,000 fewer than took part in the BCTF’s first strike vote.
Also off the job are 25,000 school support workers, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees who are respecting the teachers’ picket lines.
“Legal or illegal, they are picket lines, and in the labour movement, we have kind of a motto about picket lines,” said Barry O’Neill, president of CUPE’s B.C. division. “A picket line is a picket line, and we don’t cross.”
He said concern is growing in the labour movement about the Liberal government’s disrespect for collective bargaining, and that might yet escalate into job action by other unions.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Shirley Bond said the government will do all it can on behalf of teachers who want to cross BCTF picket lines and report for work.
A scattering of teachers did so in several school districts around the province yesterday.
Ms. Bond said many more teachers would like to be back in school.
“It’s time that the B.C. Teachers’ Federation actually listened to the voice of not just parents, but many classroom teachers who are expressing that view.”
The Education Minister said the government understands the need for a better bargaining system for teachers and a third party has been appointed to recommend a new structure for the next round of negotiations.
“We are working to fix the system,” Ms. Bond told reporters in Victoria.
Jeff Hopkins, principal at Belmont Secondary School in Victoria, said three teachers were at work yesterday. “Each had their own reason for coming in, but generally, they felt a little anxious and a little frustrated.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Times Colonist (Victoria)
Cracks starting to show in teachers’ united front
Union head says members remain united
Jeff Rud
Times Colonist
October 13, 2005
CREDIT: Ray Smith, CanWest News Service
Anne-Marie De Lorey and her children walk the picket line at Central School in support of the B.C. Teachers Federation in Victoria on Friday.
Some teachers have decided to defy their union and are crossing picket lines to return to work.
For the past three work days, Carl Ratsoy has marked tests, checked equipment for an experiment and developed lesson plans — all standard stuff for the Reynolds Secondary physics teacher.
It has been business as usual for Ratsoy, with one glaring exception. There have been no students at the Greater Victoria district high school since the B.C. Teachers’ Federation began its full-scale walkout last Friday.
Ratsoy is among 15 district teachers — out of about 1,200 — who have either refused to walk out or returned since the strike began. At Reynolds, seven of 44 teachers are on the job, while a small number are also reporting at Oak Bay High School.
“To me it’s really pretty simple,” Ratsoy, 44, said Wednesday. “I think I have a legal responsibility, a professional responsibility, that really outweighs all other considerations.”
As a member of the B.C. College of Teachers, Ratsoy said: “I’m sort of expected to obey the rule of law.”
“There must be a better way of resolving disputes,” he added.
B.C.’s teachers have been off the job since Friday in what the Labour Relations Board says is an illegal strike.
Teachers went on strike in reaction to the government imposing a contract after months of fruitless talks. This morning, the B.C. Supreme Court will hear submissions on penalties for the illegal walkout. Court is expected to assess the BCTF daily fines.
BCTF president Jinny Sims said resolve remains solid. Out of 38,000 active members, the vast majority are on picket lines. “As a matter of fact, I’d say we have fewer [dissenters] now than we’ve had in the past — ever.”
Ratsoy said he hasn’t been hassled while walking past strikers and if the walkout is prolonged, he expects more teachers to cross the line. “Payday is, of course, this Friday for teachers and [receiving less pay] will be something that people will have to examine,” he said.
Three teachers were also on the job Wednesday at Belmont Secondary, including Charlene Manning, a 30-year veteran in the Sooke district.
Manning crossed the picket line Friday, was joined by a second colleague Tuesday and another Wednesday.
“It’s illegal and it won’t benefit anybody, I don’t think,” Manning said of the strike. She also crossed Canadian Union of Public Employees picket lines at her school in 2004.
Ratsoy has had a previous battle with his own union, as well, for accepting an appointment by then education minister Christy Clark to a new college of teachers board which the union opposed. “I think a number of teachers . . . do fear disciplinary action,” Ratsoy said. “But I don’t think it’s possible, really. How can a union try to discipline its members for behaving in a lawful manner? That’s absurd.”
Education Minister Shirley Bond said teachers have been calling her office, the Education Ministry and some school boards, to talk about crossing the line.
“We’ve been sharing information,” Bond said, “so they recognize there are laws in this province that would prevent them from being penalized for a personal choice, especially when the activity they’re choosing not to participate in has been deemed illegal. . . . I would hope the union would respect their members’ choice and I’m sure it was a very difficult personal decision.”
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2005
Follow
