With a media blackout in place, it is hard to discern the amount or regularity of negotiations happening between the provincial government and BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), and therefore how much hope parents should hold that their children will be back in class on September 2.
At last week’s BCTF summer leadership conference, Jim Iker, president of the teachers’ union, called on the government to enter into mediation immediately. Veteran mediator Vince Ready said in early August that he would monitor the talks and intervene when the sides were closer. So far there is no indication that that has happened.
Throughout the summer both the teachers and education minister Peter Fassbender have said that they are available anytime to discuss ending the contract dispute, but those calls sound like the language of a tumbleweed standoff where gun fighters wait for the other to draw first. Fassbender has also said that the government will not legislate teachers back to work for the sake of labour peace.
He said the provincial government launched its parent information website which outlines the government’s offers to the teachers. It will also will allow parents to register for the $40-a-day child care subsidy program set to start September 2. It appears some teachers are offering to look after children in their own homes, turning them into unlicensed daycares, for $40 per day each.
At last word, the two sides were close on wages, but the issues of class size and composition stands in the way of a settlement.
Both are awaiting BC Court of Appeal decision as to how this conflict will play out. In 2002, then-premier Gordon Campbell and education minister Christy Clark passed Bills 27 and 28 which removed class size and composition from contract negotiations. In 2011, the BC Supreme Court ruled the bills were unconstitutional and violated teachers’ collective bargaining rights. The government was given one year to resolve the issue, so then in 2012, Bill 22 was introduced which basically restored what the Supreme Court had rejected. The BCTF went back to court which, in January 2014, ruled a second time that the government had negotiated in bad faith with the union after Bill 28. The provincial government has appealed that decision and the sides are waiting for yet another Court of Appeal decision, expected sometime between October and the end of the year.
None of this helps assuage parents’ fears that come Tuesday their children will still be at home.
