September 26, 2005

Teacher Strikes

Why did the Campbell government appear to mislead the public with respect to strikes by teachers? They campaigned saying that education is an essential service. Education Minister Shirley Bond has made statements recently that suggest no interruption to children's education will be tolerated. It is as if the Campbell government wants to create the impression that "essential service designation" is the same as eliminating the right to strike, but the two are very different.

Designating education as an essential service means that the Labour Relations Board (LRB) hears arguments from both sides and then rules on what job action is permissible under the Labour Code. That might include such things as withdrawing sponsorship of extracurricular activities, such as clubs and sports teams, refusing administrative duties or periods of school closures. No one knows what it will include since the only other time the teachers appeared before the board, the Campbell government legislated an end to their job action and imposed a contract before the essential service process was completed at the LRB. It is widely expect that the same thing will happen this time.

Apart from taking advantage politically of the public's confusion over essential services and strikes, it is possible that that government didn't want to talk directly about banning strikes because that would oblige it to provide an alternative dispute resolution process, usually some form of arbitration. The Campbell government wants to have it both ways; they want no strikes but they don't want to provide an alternative. The game they are playing is to wait until public pressure mounts against the teachers and then move in with legislation to impose a contract under their terms. The BCTF appears to be co-operating with that strategy, but it is understandable that they are frustrated that they have been denied the opportunity to negotiate the issues that are most important to them. Like it or not, the government that legislatively broke their contract, and removed the right to bargain classroom issues, has a clear majority and will again impose its will.

Timing is of the essence in the government's handling of any teacher's strike action. If it moves too soon, it will acknowledge that it has no respect for the essential service legislation it brought in. The government might try to finesse that problem by relying on the report from Labour Associate Deputy Minister Rick Connolly who was appointed as a fact-finder in the dispute on September 19th. If Connolly reports that the likelihood of a negotiated settlement is somewhere between slim and none, the government may feel justified in intervening quickly. That would present a problem on how the legislation would be presented to the Legislature. The usual tactic is to appeal to the Speaker for a suspension of the rules so as to allow the Bill to pass through all three readings on the same day, and to impose closure if necessary in order to meet the emergency. If the government moves too quickly, it can't use that tactic, and a public backlash could development against the government for bullying the teachers again.

The government should not impose a contract on the teachers rather than legislating an alternative dispute resolution process. It commissioned a report into teachers' bargaining, but it has not stated its position regarding the Wright report. The BCTF has condemned the report; its position is that it wants a return to local collective bargaining. Teachers should be reminded that binding arbitration was the only available dispute resolution mechanism in the days before 1987 when local bargaining occurred. No political party supports a return to local bargaining for teachers. The Wright report deserves a careful read in light of the current dispute. If the government isn't going to take its advice, it should say what it is going to do to fix the bargaining process.