A long-standing dispute over who sets conditions in BC’s classrooms will continue after the BC Court of Appeal released its ruling in favour of the province.
After winning two court cases in a row against the provincial government, BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) was looking for a return to pre–2002 standards on class size and composition, something the union has been fighting for in court over the past 13 years. But that hope has been delayed as the appeal court released its four-to-one ruling, Thursday, April 30. The decision of the appeal court overturns BC Supreme Court Justice Susan Griffin’s 2012 ruling in favour of the union.
BCTF president Jim Iker held a press conference at the union’s headquarters after the ruling was released and said to reporters that the union would continue the fight and would apply to appeal the decision with the Supreme Court of Canada.
Premier Christy Clark said she was “very pleased” with the court’s decision and added that both sides have an opportunity to work together.
Justice Griffin had ruled that the provincial government’s 2002 decision to strip the teachers’ right to negotiate on how to deal with special-needs students and set class-size standards was unconstitutional as it violated the teachers’ Charter guarantee to fair collective bargaining. And then in 2012 she ruled again that the legislation which the government introduced to solve the problem was also unconstitutional. She fined the provincial government $2 million.
The appeal court disagreed with Griffin’s conclusion that the government had negotiated in bad faith prior to bringing in Bill 22 and had pushed the union to strike in 2012.
The majority opinion of the five-justice appeal court panel was that the teachers’ union had sufficient opportunity to exercise its rights through the government’s consultation with the union prior to introducing Bill 22. Justice Ian Donald provided a dissenting opinion on the matter. He wrote governments would then have the power to “declare all further compromise in any context to be untenable, pass whatever it wants and spend all ‘consultation periods’ repeatedly saying, ‘sorry, this is as far as we can go.’ This would make a mockery of the concept of collective bargaining.”
The appeal court also disagreed with Griffin’s interpretation of class size and composition provisions in her previous rulings. “We accept that these subjects affect teachers’ working conditions, but they engage more than working conditions; they directly engage education policy. We consider this to be a centrally important fact,” read the decision.
They then went on to explain that the provincial government is “charged with the democratic responsibility of developing education policy in the public interest and is held politically accountable for the policy choices it makes.”
Cathy Fisher, president of Powell River and District Teachers’ Association, shared the association’s opinion on the decision, Friday morning, May 1. “Yesterday was a very sad day for public education,” she said. “We fundamentally disagree with this decision, but take heart in the very strong dissenting opinion of Justice Donald.”
Echoing the BCTF’s sentiment, Fisher said if the government is serious about building relations, it can start with rescinding the mandated cuts announced in the last budget, put more money into public schools and repeal Bill 11, another piece of legislation that interferes with democratically elected school boards.
“The government put funding into a contingency fund in case they lost in court,” Fisher added. “That money is there, so instead of forcing more cuts, it should be invested in our schools.”
Fisher said this could have implications for all working people, not just teachers. “Basically, what the BC Appeal Court’s majority ruled was that it’s okay to strip collective agreements as long as the employer talks to the workers first,” she said.
BCTF won the class size and composition provisions from the Glen Clark’s New Democratic Party government when the teachers agreed to a multi-year wage freeze. “All that was taken away by this government,” Fisher added.
The teachers’ union will pay back the $2 million, but it will be able to keep the much larger amount paid out to settle the contract dispute in 2014. The contract, signed in September, included a $105-million education fund from the government to cancel thousands of grievances that had been filed since 2002.
“Teachers will continue to defend our rights, our working conditions and BC’s public education system,” said Fisher. “We will seek leave at the Supreme Court of Canada because we believe this decision gives too much power to governments over workers in Canada. Real collective bargaining is not about pre-determined outcomes or legislation imposing working conditions.”
