The teachers are out on the picket line in Prince George again today, the latest chapter in their decades-long battle with the provincial government.
Two generations of students in the public school system in B.C. have now been educated under the threat of job action, either a strike or a lockout, or have been directly affected by closed schools, as the school-aged children in Prince George are today.
Yet there's been some small changes under Premier Christy Clark's that could make things worse in the short term but potentially better in the long term.
Clark and education minister Peter Fassbender are playing tough with the teachers. When the B.C. Teachers Federation announced it would have province-wide rotating strikes, the government countered with a partial lockout that will cost teachers 10 per cent of their pay.
As Justine Hunter pointed out in a weekend column in the Globe and Mail, the sooner both sides turn up the heat, the closer they are to serious bargaining and a resolution. Under Gordon Campbell's rule, teachers were basically ignored until they called a full strike. Then the government passed back-to-work legislation with non-compliance fines that would have crippled the BCTF.
The issues went unresolved and the tension only intensified.
Under Clark, however, the Liberals are saying they will not order teachers back to work. In other words, she is daring the teachers to go on strike right across the province this coming fall. As Hunter points out, a strike will test the resolve of the teachers and their union. For teachers, the pay to walk a picket line is pennies on the dollar compared to their wages and they open themselves to public anger. Strikes are expensive and harmful to the long-term health of the union, as well, not just financially but also internally, through morale and solidarity.
The Liberal government is forcing an escalation in hostilities because it's still waiting for the best offer from the teachers. That offer won't come until a full strike of about two weeks that threatens to go three weeks or longer, forcing parent outrage against the teachers and, to a lesser extent, the government to a feverish pitch. Only then, under intense pressure, will the best deal be put on the table.
Currently, the teachers want a pay raise, smaller class sizes and more support staff to help with challenged students. In other words, teachers want to get paid more money to do less work. That's a fine starting point as a negotiating tactic but the real offer the Liberals are waiting for is a long-term deal (five or six years long) where teachers either get paid more to do more work or where teachers do the same amount of work they do now for a token increase. The final numbers will be just details around that goal.
Clark's strategy, however, is actually even more hardball than Hunter suggests. Rather than rip up contracts and other underhanded moves that courts could rule is bargaining in bad faith, the premier plans to meet the teachers head-on. She won't lock them out fully but she will happily inform everyone that the right to bargain teachers have includes the right to strike. She wants to be able to blame the ultimate conflict on the BCTF. Then, along with a new contract agreed to under the duress of a lengthy and bitter strike, Clark also wants to leave behind a battered, bankrupt and divided union.
What happened last week and is going on again today in Prince George is simply a taste of what's to come when school resumes in the fall. If Clark has her way, students won't be in class but the teachers will be the ones being schooled.
As Bachman Turner sang last night at CN Centre, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
