Teachers' Bargaining

May 24, 2006

Teachers' Bargaining Part 2

What are the options if the BCTF takes the province's teachers out on strike later this year? The Campbell government is fond of saying it made education an "essential service", but that doesn't remove the teachers' right to strike, it only puts the Labour Relations Board in charge of approving what form job action can take. There have been two teacher strikes since education was made an essential service. In both cases, government intervened with legislation rather than allowing the procedure it established to unfold. The second time it intervened, an illegal two week province-wide shutdown occurred; so much for an essential service!

Unions hate it, but legislative interventions to end strikes, and impose a contract or establish an arbitration procedure for determining a contract, are part of the labour relations process that has been used by governments of all political stripes. It is rare for strike-ending legislation to be ignored for as long as two weeks; the court assessed a fine of $500,000. The BCTF should not think that the October 21, 2005, ruling sets a precedent enabling it to repeat its action for the price of $500,000. The fine could have been that much per day plus fines for individual teachers. It is true that many of the benefits we enjoy today are a result of unions that were willing to engage in civil disobedience, but there is a price to pay for such actions and that price might be unacceptable to the majority of the province's teachers if another illegal action follows only one year after the last warning from the court.

The BCTF will initially find itself in a legal position to strike; any action will only become illegal if the union either ignores a LRB order or the government legislates and the union disobeys. In the fall of 2005 the government lost public support by behaving arrogantly and legislating too quickly. It is not likely to repeat those mistakes. Rather than running the risks of that kind of showdown, the BCTF would be well advised to negotiate a contract before June 30, 2006. A deal like that would be historic: the first province-wide negotiated agreement for the teachers and it would deliver the signing bonus to approximately 30,000 teachers (about $100 million in value).

May 21, 2006

Teachers' Bargaining

"We can stand together and insist that the government negotiate a fair and reasonable collective agreement before June 30, 2006."
BCTF Bargaining Bulletin, May 19, 2006

It is disturbing that the BCTF is taking a strike vote on June 8th and 9th. The positive news is that the BC Teachers' Federation is "insisting" on a collective agreement before June 30th, 2006. It is difficult to believe that the BCTF would fail to achieve a negotiated agreement when the government has an 8% over 4 years offer on the table, a signing bonus, plus legislation that provides a hard cap of no more than 30 students per class and no more than three special needs students.

In the good old days of the 1980s, teachers bargained until a deadline and then submitted disputes to binding arbitration. Bill Vander Zalm decided that was too costly for the Province so in 1987 he gave teachers full bargaining rights like any other union, meaning the right to strike. There hasn't been a negotiated agreement since province wide bargaining was imposed in 1994.

The BCTF deservedly won public support for its illegal job action in 2005. The Campbell government made that possible through its pigheaded approach to labour relations. It is only through the work of Vince Ready that a truce was achieved in October 2005.

The BCTF cannot assume that its current negotiations pick up where the last dispute left off. The government has moved on class size and composition. Its last offer is not the offer that will remain on the table if the BCTF does not settle by June 30th. Teachers stand to lose the $3,500 (or greater) signing bonus. Their bargaining committee needs to come to grips with the reality that less may be on the table after June 30th. Rather than conducting a strike vote, it should drop many of its demands and show movement towards a reasonable position.

Public sector bargaining is particularly political in BC so the Campbell Liberals and the NDP must consider the consequences of yet another failure to reach a collective agreement with the teachers. As the issues are now presented the NDP has more to fear from the behaviour of its friends than does the Campbell government, which may be able to win public support in a fight with the teachers' bargaining agent. The government has settled with all public sector unions except the BCTF. What makes the BCTF different from other pubic sector unions that they alone can't find an agreement?