B.C. teachers may have significantly reduced their demands but remain steadfastly opposed to meeting the provincial government's call for a "net zero" contract, Prince George and District Teachers Association (PGDTA) president Matt Pearce said Tuesday.
"We aren't agreeing to net zero," Pearce said. "There will be no signed collective agreement with net zero on the table."
After originally making demands the government had estimated would cost $1 billion, the B.C. Teachers Federation (BCTF) issued a revised set Tuesday that it claims would cost employers $300 million over three years.
But the province wants a contract that provides no increase in the cost of employing teachers as part of a "net zero" mandate for all provincial government employees.
The BCTF is now seeking a three year agreement with a three per cent cost of living increase in each year, plus a three per cent wage increase in the second and third years - adding up to 15 per cent over the agreement's length.
In addition, the union is demanding what it calls modest improvements to benefits, which it says have not changed in 18 years.
Pearce said $300 million is fair because that's how much the government "illegally took in funding every year for the past 10 years out of public education with their contract strips from 2002."
That was when teachers were prohibited from negotiating class size and composition. A B.C. Supreme Court justice ruled in April that the move was a violation of teachers' constitutional rights. However, the government was also given a year to respond.
"Basically, this proposal asks them [the provincial government] to reinvest into education the money that was illegally taken out and when I say illegal, that's what the Supreme Court said," Pearce said.
The teachers' job action, in which they're refusing to provide playground supervision and complete report cards, remains in place. It will be discussed at a BCTF meeting at the end of this month but Pearce doubts teacher will back away.
"We would be please to do that if there were actual negotiations going on, but if the response to this proposal is negative again, I certainly don't see a deescalation," Pearce said.
While it has meant plenty of extra work for administration, Pearce claimed it has had little effect on the classroom.
"We frequently have teachers who've been asked by the kids, 'are you guys still on strike?' That's how much they've noticed it," Pearce said.
Neither the Ministry of Education nor the B.C. Public School Employers Association, the provincial government's bargaining agent, issued a response Tuesday.
- with files from Canadian Press
