The provincial government has imposed on teachers a six-month "cooling off period" with legislation introduced Tuesday that takes away the right of teachers to strike if it becomes law.
But Prince George teachers were burning hot when the framework for the next round of bargaining under a mediator was revealed, and there remains a real threat of a teachers' walkout by as early as next week.
The province's 41,000 teachers will decide in a vote today whether they will walk off the job, which could close schools by as early as Monday.
Bill 22, the Education Improvement Act, introduced in the legislature Tuesday, extends the current teachers' contract through June 2013. The government wants the BCTF and the B.C. Public School Employers' Association (BCPSEA) to spend the next six months working with a mediator under a net-zero mandate to produce a negotiated settlement. If no settlement has been reached by the start of the next school year, the government will impose its legislation.
Teachers have been asking for a 15 per cent wage increase over three years.
Calling some of the measures highlighted in Bill 22 "draconian" Prince George District Teachers' Association president Matt Pearce said the legislation fails to appease teachers' concerns over class size and class composition and the right to bargain those issues which were illegally stripped in 2002.
"I feel like I'm in Orwell's 1984 - it is absolutely deceitful and it is going to mean more cuts for kids," said Pearce.
"This bill envisions no upper limits on class size. They've repealed what the court said was illegal, but they've rewritten it even worse. There's nothing left that can
protect a student's learning
environment.
"As much as this is a massive attack on teachers, it's also an
attack on students and parents, and I don't think they will recognize it. Teachers have known for 10 years this government is out to take apart public education and if you can't see Bill 22 for what it is, you don't know how they are."
The B.C. Labour Relations Board ruled Tuesday teachers are legally allowed to withhold their services for three days in the first week of a strike, then will be granted the right to be off the job one day in each subsequent week.
Striking teachers are bound by restrictions because they provide what is deemed an essential
service.
Teachers at the LRB hearing had asked for the right to walk off the job for eight days (four days each week in a two-week period).
"[With the] LRB ruling in the morning we were granted the right to strike and the legislation took that away in a couple of hours, despite the Charter of Rights and Freedoms," said Pearce.
"The time it takes to go to court to challenge the legislation will take longer than the life of the
legislation.
"This six months of mediation will be a six-month contract-stripping that we get to watch at the table.
"Teachers have professional autonomy rights to determine the methods of instruction in the classroom and all of those will be gone.
"Teachers will be told what to teach and when to teach it."
The current job action has so far been limited to teachers not filling out report cards or performing administrative duties outside of the classroom.
The government says the dispute has gone on long enough and students are suffering as a result.
"We are not prepared to see a school year pass without every parent in B.C. getting a full accounting of how their children are progressing in school," said Education Minister George Abbott.
"We are particularly concerned about the impact on vulnerable students.
"Using legislation to resolve stalled negotiations is never the preferred option, but we need to end the disruptive strike that's creating a strain in our schools and classrooms."
If Bill 22 becomes law, expected by next week, teachers would not have the right to strike until the two-year contract expires in June 2013.
An illegal strike would result in fines of $1.3 million per day for the BCTF and $475 per day per teacher.
"We hope the teachers' union will take a constructive approach and respect the cooling off
period," said Abbott.
"However, if they choose a different path, the legislation includes stiff financial consequences for illegal strike action."
BCTF president Susan Lambert called the proposed fines "outrageous, a deliberate attempt to
intimidate, bully and bludgeon."
She said the act removes all limits on class size and class composition and restricts bargaining on guaranteed service levels for learning specialists, special-needs teachers, ESL teachers, librarians and counsellors.
"When boards face a $100 million shortfall next year, this will only lead to further cuts of these services," Lambert said.
"This act is the height of political cynicism, it's much more of a political act than it is an educational one, and it completely ignores the needs of students in this province.
"Children in public school will receive lessons out of a box, canned instruction, in direct contradiction to the stated goals of the minister's so-called education plan."
By forcing a net-zero mandate that doesn't keep pace with the rate of inflation, Lambert said the legislation will leave teachers a salary cutback of $1,400 each per year.
She said the government chose to introduce legislation despite indications from the BCTF and BCPSEA that both sides agreed to a mediated settlement.
Failing that, she said the teachers' union was willing to accept binding arbitration to come to terms on a new contract.
