If the government offers any financial incentives that result in increases to teachers, Finance Minister Kevin Falcon has stated it would trigger clauses that would force the government to reopen other public sector contracts.
All public sector unions that have settled contracts with the province in the past two years have had to follow the Liberal government's net-zero mandate, which has frozen wages and benefits at current levels.
"The reality is if the teachers achieve their 15 per cent wage increase objective that would have a 'me too' effect on 130 other agreements that have already been signed," Falcon told CBC News.
"The price tag for the public would be in the billions of dollars - additional dollars that would obviously sabotage any hope of getting a balanced budget."
Sussanne Skidmore, vice-president of the North Central Labour Council, who represents government administrative service workers, doubts existing collective agreements would ever be reopened, no matter what happens in the teachers' dispute.
"All of our collective agreements across the public sector are coming up and it's part of the current negotiations, so it's not that they would have to go backwards, it's about moving forward," said Skidmore.
"They haven't been worried about bankrupting the province when they've been giving astronomical raises to their top level of deputy ministers. Yet when we want just a reasonable wage increase for public employees we're not getting it. We're told if we want any improvements in our contracts we have to mine our own agreements."
Unionized workers joined striking teachers for a noon-hour rally Tuesday to protest pending government legislation that could result in an imposed contract settlement for the province's 41,000 public school teachers.
A crowd of about 500 gathered on a cool but sunny day for the downtown demonstration in front of Prince George-Mount Robson MLA Shirley Bond's office to hear labour leaders speak in a show of support for the teachers.
"Supporting teachers is the right thing to do," said Skidmore. "It's the teachers' union's right to sit down and negotiate a fair contract and the legislation forces them back to work and brings in heavy fines for teachers themselves as well as the executive [if they walk off the job in an illegal strike].
"It's a slippery slope for all of us. If they pull this on teachers, what are they going to do with us? You can guarantee all across the board in the public sector, they will be pushing through legislation that forces us all back to work and doesn't allow us contract negotiations."
Another teachers' rally is planned for today at 6 p.m. at the Civic Centre plaza. With more unionized workers off work for the rally, Canadian Union of Public Employees local 3742 president Lorraine Prouse expects a crowd double that of Tuesday's rally.
"Our teachers are our co-workers and Bill 22 will not only affect teachers, it will affect every unionized worker in this province," said Prouse. "Its detrimental to our way of living.
"I'm not worried about them reopening contracts. If they can't honour the teacher's contracts, they certainly won't have anything to do with the wage re-openers."
As the walkout moves into Day 3, the maximum legally allowed, Prince George District Teachers' Association president Matt Pearce said teachers will move off their "sticket" lines this morning and gather at Parkwood Mall for a march up 15th Avenue to Highway 97.
