CBC: Labor unrest spreads in BC
Thousands of CUPE workers across northern British Columbia are expected to walk off the job Tuesday in support of striking teachers, a day after union supporters shut down many services in the provincial capital.
The Globe and Mail:
BC teachers still have public’s support
Striking B.C. teachers continue to have the support of residents in that province, a new poll suggests, but it also finds a fairly even split when it comes to the issue of whether it is time to go back to the classroom. According to the results of a survey conducted by Ipsos Reid, the majority of those polled — about 57 per cent — say they side with the teachers in the continuing contract dispute with the provincial government.
Thousands march in support of teachers
Mary Johnston awoke at 4 a.m. yesterday for a field trip unlike any she had ever been on. The Maple Ridge teacher caught a bus to Victoria with fellow teachers from Fairview Elementary. Three buses from her school district were making the early-morning trek to the capital. On a dreary Monday morning, when she would have been in her Grade 2 classroom hanging Halloween decorations, Ms. Johnston was instead marching at the legislature to protest.
Teachers face criminal contempt probe
The legal vise is beginning to tighten around tens of thousands of public school teachers in British Columbia, now on the seventh day of an illegal strike that has shut classrooms across the province.
The Globe and Mail
B.C. teachers still have public’s support: poll
By TERRY WEBER
Tuesday, October 18, 2005 Posted at 12:20 PM EDT
Globe and Mail Update
Striking B.C. teachers continue to have the support of residents in that province, a new poll suggests, but it also finds a fairly even split when it comes to the issue of whether it is time to go back to the classroom.
According to the results of a survey conducted by Ipsos Reid, the majority of those polled — about 57 per cent — say they side with the teachers in the continuing contract dispute with the provincial government.
About one-third, meanwhile, said they were on the side of the government and B.C.’s public school board.
The poll also found, however, that not all of those who back the teachers think the 12-day walkout should continue.
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The results of the survey, conducted over the weekend, suggested that about 47 per cent say they approve of the strike action taken so far and think the teachers should continue to hold out.
The other half either never supported the strike or said that, while they back the action taken to this point, it is now time to go back to work.
The survey comes as the bitter dispute, now in its 11th day, moves back into the courtroom.
On Tuesday, the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association is scheduled to appear before B.C. Supreme Court Judge Brenda Brown to ask that stiff fines be imposed over the teachers’ refusal to end what the provincial labour board has deemed an illegal strike. The hearing is set to begin at 10 a.m. local time.
The teachers walked off the job on Oct. 7 in what a calling a political protest triggered by the province’s decision to pass legislation imposing a new two-year contract.
The contract carries no wage increase over that period, whereas the teachers have asked for 15 per cent. The union also insists, however, that the bigger issue in the dispute is the government’s refusal to negotiate on issues of class size and composition and its efforts to force a contract on the province’s public school teachers.
Almost immediately after the walkout, the labour board ruled the strike illegal and ordered teachers to return to work. Judge Brown later upheld that ruling and, when the B.C. Teachers’ Federation didn’t comply, she effectively froze the union’s assets, making it impossible for it to pay striking teachers their $50-a-day picket pay.
B.C.’s criminal justice branch has now also hired a special prosecutor to look at whether the union should face criminal-contempt charges for its refusal to call off the strike.
In Tuesday’s action, the public school employers will ask the judge to impose “significant” fines on top of the asset freeze already in place under the civil contempt finding.
“The reason we started this whole thing is to try to have some way of bringing a message to allow the schools to be back open and have the teachers return to school,” lawyer Nazeer Mitha, who represents the public school employers, told Broadcast News.
“That’s the reason we initiated the process in the first place. That’s the reason we’re continuing the process.”
So far the teachers have held firm in their decision to stay off the job. Other unions have rallied behind them. On Monday, thousands gathered at the B.C. legislature to protest the government’s actions, disrupting transit and other services in some centres. The B.C. Federation of Labour has hinted at further sympathetic action by some of its members if the standoff continues.
On Tuesday, the Canadian Union of Public Employees had targeted the northern part of the province, with a rally planned outside B.C. Education Minister Shirley Bond’s Prince George office.
In neighbouring communities, CUPE is asking its members to join teachers on the picket lines.
B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, meanwhile, has insisted that the province will not go back to the table as long as teachers continue to flout the court order.
“The fact of the matter is, in a civil society, we must obey the law,” he said in a televised address Monday.
In Tuesday’s Ipsos-Reid survey, about six in 10 people polled said they disagreed with the province’s decision to legislate an end to the dispute. Five in 10 said they “strongly” disagreed with the move.
Four in 10 said they approved the province’s efforts.
On the issue of the court-imposed freeze on the teachers’ federation’s assets, 54 per cent said they approved, while 43 per cent disapproved.
B.C. residents were also divided on the pay issue. About 46 per cent said teachers are underpaid, while 45 per cent think teachers are overpaid.
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The Globe and Mail
Thousands march in support of teachers
‘We will not be broken,’ union president tells crowd gathered at B.C. Legislature
By TOM HAWTHORN
Tuesday, October 18, 2005 Page S1
Special to The Globe and Mail
VICTORIA — Mary Johnston awoke at 4 a.m. yesterday for a field trip unlike any she had ever been on.
The Maple Ridge teacher caught a bus to Victoria with fellow teachers from Fairview Elementary.
Three buses from her school district were making the early-morning trek to the capital.
On a dreary Monday morning, when she would have been in her Grade 2 classroom hanging Halloween decorations, Ms. Johnston was instead marching at the legislature to protest.
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She is one of 38,000 teachers whose walkout has been declared illegal and whose union’s assets have been frozen by the courts.
“We don’t feel like we’re breaking a law,” she said, “because it’s a bad law.”
While such sentiment might not earn a passing grade at law school, the scofflaw teacher was not alone in her opinion yesterday, as organized labour called a rally that shut down many government services in the city.
Libraries were closed and city buses were left at the terminal after picket lines appeared. As well, liquor stores and recreation centres were shut down for the day, as those workers joined teachers and others at downtown Centennial Square before parading south along the Government Street tourist strip to the lawn of the legislature.
On a day when Premier Gordon Campbell once again insisted teachers had to obey the law, the thousands who gathered in Victoria cheered on the teachers in their defiance.
Jinny Sims, president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, was greeted like a rock star at the rally.
“There is a big difference between breaking a law and having a law created to break you,” she told the rally.
“We will not be broken.”
The government passed Bill 12 on Oct. 7, imposing an extension of the existing contract on teachers. Their union wants to negotiate a collective agreement, although now the government is refusing to meet with them as they defy a court order to return to work.
“Gordon Campbell has tried to divide us,” Ms. Sims told the crowd of more than 8,000.
“He’s tried to threaten us with the courts. We as teachers have a great deal of respect for the courts. We have no respect for laws that are just unjust.”
She spoke shortly after Vancouver lawyer Leonard Doust was appointed as an independent special prosecutor. He will decide whether to launch criminal contempt proceedings.
Last Thursday, Madam Justice Brenda Brown of B.C. Supreme Court ordered the teachers’ union funds to be placed in a trusteeship as punishment for being in contempt of court. The decision prevents union members from receiving $50 a day in strike pay.
Ms. Sims, a 53-year-old teacher from Nanaimo, said her only experience with the courts in the past has been to bring students to trials as part of their studies.
The rally was the first of what could become daily events in cities across the province. Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, told the crowd the dispute could be settled only if the government is willing to negotiate with the teachers.
“Get off your high horse and get down to the table and start talking,” Mr. Sinclair told the rally.
The personal nature of the dispute, which affects about 600,000 public-school pupils from kindergarten to Grade 12, led Mr. Sinclair to give public thanks to his son, Lee Croll, who is in his graduating year at a Vancouver secondary school. Mr. Sinclair apologized to his son for being unable to see him in the past week while dealing with the dispute.
Some in the crowd greeted the speeches with chants of “general strike.”
The rally included its share of bizarre costumes, including a bone-waving protester in a caveman’s singlet, as well as two others in rat costumes complete with long pink tails.
Marchers were led by students acting as pallbearers for a coffin labelled “Education RIP.”
The procession marched in a spirit more festive than sombre, as drums kept a rhythm and one marcher rang an old-fashioned, hand-held school bell.
Michael Bendle, a 17-year-old Grade 12 student from Qualicum Beach, marched with Molly, an Irish wheaten terrier. The dog’s raincoat carried the message: “Education is going to the dogs.”
The Premier’s mug shot from his 2003 arrest for impaired driving in Hawaii was popular artwork for many signs. “This is what illegal looks like,” read one. “Bill 12, another example of impaired judgment.”
One sign read, “Hey, Gordo, kiss my assets.”
Another handmade sign repeated a catchphrase in use in schools around the province: “If you feel bullied, you need to tell someone.”
The teachers were in good spirits despite a drenching rain. Aboard the ferry on the way to Victoria, Paula Howart of Maple Ridge sang parody lyrics to Johnny Cash’s I Walk the Line. Her crystalline voice usually entertains the 27 students in her Grade 4 class at Fairview.
The day’s protest led some to wax nostalgic about their early days as teachers. Ms. Johnston, the Grade 2 teacher, recalled her first field trip as a teacher 33 years ago, which included a visit to Victoria. She was 20, the principal and only teacher at a one-room schoolhouse in the majestic wilderness of the Chilcotin, about 200 kilometres west of Williams Lake.
She brought 13 children, a majority of them aboriginal, to the big city, where they asked to see how chocolate was made. She suspects none of them ever forgot the experience. Even now, it makes her glad to be a teacher.
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The Globe and Mail
Striking B.C. teachers face criminal contempt probe
By ROD MICKLEBURGH
Tuesday, October 18, 2005 Page A1
VANCOUVER — The legal vise is beginning to tighten around tens of thousands of public school teachers in British Columbia, now on the seventh day of an illegal strike that has shut classrooms across the province.
Even as trade unionists shut down much of the city of Victoria yesterday in a strong show of support for the teachers, a special prosecutor was appointed to determine whether criminal contempt charges should be laid against the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and its members.
In court yesterday, special prosecutor Len Doust said it is already apparent that some of the teachers’ conduct “comes perilously close” to criminal contempt of court.
At the same time, the teacher’s federation is also facing the renewed possibility of heavy fines at a further court hearing today. The hearing was sought by representatives of the province’s school boards, who have become increasingly frustrated by the ongoing shutdown.
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An innovative, earlier order by Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown freezing the teachers’ strike fund and other union assets has not lessened the teachers’ resolve to stay off the job until they have a negotiated settlement.
Federation president Jinny Sims remained defiant in the face of the day’s legal developments, which included a fervent plea from Premier Gordon Campbell to obey the law.
Teachers will not be deterred by external threats, Ms. Sims told a huge, cheering crowd that braved drenching rain to attend an anti-government protest rally outside the legislature in Victoria.
“Mr. Campbell, stop threatening us. Stop trying to divide us. It will not work. We will not be broken,” declared the 53-year-old Nanaimo high-school teacher, who has said she is prepared to go to jail in defence of the union’s strike.
The dispute is beginning to spread beyond the teachers’ picket lines into a confrontation with the province’s entire labour movement.
B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair called yesterday’s organized-labour protest in Victoria, which shut bus service, mail delivery and many other government services, just the taste of things to come if the conflict is not resolved.
At least one other single-day, regional labour shutdown is expected to take place this week. Meanwhile members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees are launching their own job action. They are expected to be off the job today at work sites in Prince George and other northern cities.
The teacher’s federation launched its illegal walkout Oct. 7, after the government extended the teachers’ existing contract by legislation for two years, providing no wage increase and no improvement in working conditions.
Since then, the government and the union have been locked in a grim stalemate.
The teachers insist they must have a negotiated deal before they return to work, while the government is equally adamant that there can be no talks with the teachers’ federation until the union ends its illegal strike.
Judge Brown found the teachers’ union in civil contempt of court on Oct. 9 for ignoring a back-to-work order filed earlier in B.C. Supreme Court.
“We don’t get to obey the laws we like and disobey the laws we don’t like. That is the central issue here,” said Premier Campbell, making his first formal statement on the escalating crisis since his return to British Columbia late last week from a cross-country tour to discuss aboriginal issues.
“This is not a labour dispute. This is a question of law.”
Mr. Campbell said the government, including himself, is willing to talk to teachers about all sorts of issues, including the contentious issue of class size, but only after they go back to work.
“We have a duty as legislators to stand up for the courts, to stand behind the law and not allow anyone to put themselves above the law. . . . The law has to be obeyed.”
The Premier added that his government had nothing to do with the decision to appoint Mr. Doust, the special prosecutor.
Mr. Doust was selected for the task by the criminal justice branch of the provincial Attorney-General’s Ministry. He is one of the province’s most respected lawyers, having previously prosecuted such high-profile defendants as Todd Bertuzzi, Svend Robinson and the two accused in the Air-India trial.
“The criminal justice branch is a totally autonomous body,” Mr. Campbell said. “We had nothing to do with the appointment whatsoever.”
In court, despite his belief that actions by the teachers were close to criminal contempt of court, Mr. Doust told Judge Brown that he intended to proceed cautiously for the moment.
He said he did not want to interfere with the judge’s own civil contempt of court proceedings.
However, Judge Brown said that the issue of criminal contempt, which generally calls for much stiffer penalties, including possible jail time, than civil contempt of court, has been on her mind, because teachers have not obeyed her previous order.
She asked lawyers for both the teachers’ federation and the school boards to turn their minds to the question too, ahead of today’s hearing.
More than 10,000 protesters attended yesterday’s pro-teacher rally in Victoria, packing the legislature’s large soggy lawn.
One protest sign called the rally: “Lesson Day for Gordon”.
Teacher Don Stevenson travelled from Port Alberni. “We are not happy with the way we’ve been treated in negotiations and we’re not going to take it any more. We’re fed up.”
The only hopeful sign in the bitter deadlock was continuing communications between union leaders such as Mr. Sinclair and deputy Labour minister Rick Connolly.
But otherwise, each side is waiting for the other to make the first move.
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