What the government says
This government has announced a proposed new framework to bring about 10 years of labour peace with B.C. teachers. We have a great education system in this province, but wherever I travel in B.C. people tell me that it is time we put students first.
The last round of labour negotiations was difficult and prolonged, and as usual students and classrooms were disrupted across our system. This is nothing new in the history of our negotiations. I believe our children deserve better than this. It is time to set this behind us and embark on a more collaborative way of doing things.
We are proposing a new framework with bold, new ideas designed to give us a fresh start.
It includes a new structured and transparent bargaining process that would draw on professional mediators and conciliators to help resolve impasses. We would seek a relationship with teachers built on transparency, collaboration and openness to new ideas.
The proposed framework also includes an Education Policy Council with representatives from government, the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) and school-board trustees to advise government on public education policy priorities, including a proposed new $100-million Priority Education Investment Fund.
We are also prepared to index teachers' compensation on par to their fellow B.C. public-sector colleagues, like nurses, college faculty and government employees. Had we used this model over the past 10 years, teachers' salaries would have increased by an average of 2.0 per cent, as opposed to the 1.8 per cent average teachers have received. In other words, teachers would be farther ahead today than they were in the last system, without all the heartache that's gone on with all the labour disruptions that we've seen in the last decade.
Our proposed framework is the start of a conversation and represents our commitment to long-term stability and a more effective relationship between teachers and government. With a signed ten-year agreement, the government will offer B.C. public school teachers a voice in funding education priorities and an official role in education policy decisions. B.C. families deserve an education system without interruptions caused by labour disputes. On behalf of all British Columbians, I believe teachers and government can work together from our shared passion for youth and education and choose to do things in a new way. Together, we can imagine a decade of labour peace - and then achieve it.
– By Don McRae, Minister of Education
What the teachers say
Premier Christy Clark’s proposed plan for a 10-year deal with public school teachers ignores court rulings, contradicts government’s own legislation, and risks scuttling a positive bargaining framework on the eve of its expected ratification by the BC Teachers’ Federation and the BC Public School Employers’ Association.
“The premier’s plan is flawed in a number of significant ways,” said BCTF President Susan Lambert.
“The key problem is that it ignores the ruling of the BC Supreme Court that teachers have the right to bargain working conditions, such as class size and class composition. The Liberals’ own Bill 22 also allows for these issues to be negotiated in this round but her new plan requires teachers to give up this hard-won right. Over the past decade, when Liberal policy regulated learning conditions, class sizes grew and support for students with special needs suffered,” Lambert said.
As a consequence, BC has the worst student-educator ratio in the country, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. In order to bring BC’s teacher staffing levels just up to the national average, the province would have to hire an astounding 6,800 more teachers.
Another major problem is the indexing of teachers’ salaries to average increases of other government employees. “This is fundamentally unfair because it effectively prohibits teachers from negotiating for their own salaries,” Lambert said. “Under such a scheme government has all the cards. The average of net zero is zero.” BC teachers’ salaries are lagging far behind those of other teachers in Canada, and the gap will only widen under this plan, she added.
Lambert questioned the government’s timing on today’s announcement, given that it comes one day before the beginning of the BCTF’s Representative Assembly and the BCPSEA’s annual general meeting. Representatives of both organizations are slated to vote on a new Framework Agreement which offers a positive process for the upcoming round of bargaining.
“In recent months we’ve quietly had productive conversations with the employer about how to achieve a smoother more effective round, and it’s most unfortunate that government chose to intervene at this time,” Lambert said, adding the BCTF will continue to recommend ratification of the Framework Agreement. On the surface the premier’s rhetoric sounds conciliatory after more than a decade of conflict between the BCTF and the BC Liberals but, in reality, her plan is yet another effort to severely limit teachers’ constitutional right to bargain.
– British Columbia Teachers Federation
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