If you happen to be driving around Vancouver bridges at noon hour today, look for Matt Pearce and some of the School District 57 teachers he represents decked out in black clothing.
The president of the Prince George District Teachers Association plans to join a B.C. Teachers Federation protest to mark Friday's 10th anniversary of provincial legislation that stripped away the right of teachers to include provisions on class sizes, class composition and special needs students in contract negotiations.
Pearce will be joined for the Dark Day in Education protest by Prince George teachers Joanne Hapke of Beaverly elementary school, Phil Rice of Prince George secondary, and Murray Garland, the Mackenzie sub-local District 57 president of the BCTF. Pearce said there were no local-level protests Friday among teachers in Prince George.
Two days of meetings with the BCTF's representative assembly begin today, with 200 teachers from all 60 school districts attending. The current bargaining will be top of the subject list at the meetings. The province's 40,000 teachers have been without a contract since June 30, 2011 and are now five months into their job action.
Last week, teachers asked for a 15 per cent wage increase spread over three years. The proposal includes three per cent cost of living increases in each of the three years plus market adjustments of three per cent in the second and third years of the contract. The BCTF also wants more preparation time for teachers.
In April, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled the province acted unconstitutionally in 2002 when it removed language from the teachers contract relating to class size and composition and replaced that with legislation.
"The Supreme Court decision tells governments that if you are going to interfere with collective bargaining, which is a Charter right, expect to go to court to answer questions why you did it," said Pearce. "Some of those questions are, 'why did you not appoint a mediator before you legislated?' or 'was there a major disruption going on that you had to legislate to end the disruption?'
"This government hasn't attempted mediation or arbitration and if we feel they've jumped the gun before they've answered those questions, then certainly we will go to court."
Education Minister George Abbott said this week he expects legislation will be needed to end the teachers' strike and has indicated teachers will not be giving back bargaining rights over class size and class composition to teachers.
Abbott said the government is obligated to rewrite provincial law as it pertains to Bills 27 and 28 and that will happen in the spring sitting of the legislature before expiration of a one-year deadline the Supreme Court imposed in its April 13, 2011 decision.
"We are obliged to put that remedy in the form of a bill for consideration by the legislature," Abbott said. "Unfortunately, unlike our negotiation with the Health Employers Union and the B.C. Nurses Union on Bill 29, we haven't been able to get a full engagement with the teachers Federation on Bills 27 and 28 and as a consequence it's likely the bill will not enjoy the same common support that Bill 29 did."
