Not a Yes, Not a No: Education Minister Wary of Arbitration

There are many things Education Minister Peter Fassbender would prefer to be doing instead of trying to settle the teacher contract dispute.

"I want to focus on learning outcomes; I want to focus on the classrooms of the future; I want to focus on the [BC Education] Plan that we've put forward," he said in a press conference today, adding he'd also like to see students and teachers back in school.

But despite his desire to get back to the other responsibilities that come with the education portfolio, Fassbender said he isn't eager to direct the BC Public School Employers' Association to enter into binding arbitration with the teachers, giving a third party the power to decide the teachers' contract settlement.

Binding arbitration is a final solution to a bargaining stalemate, where each side agrees to leave the creation of a final contract up to a third party. After considering each sides' proposals, the arbitrator creates a contract both are obliged to accept.

"I do not relish giving over our responsibility to a third party to make the decision," Fassbender said. "I've never been a fan of binding arbitration; I don't think anyone in the labour relations field feels that that is a vehicle that really serves the interest of all parties."

Earlier today BC Teachers' Federation President Jim Iker addressed union members and the media, calling on the employers' association to enter into binding arbitration to reach a deal at the bargaining table.

"It's about us trying to find a solution, and making sure the solution will work to get everyone back," Iker said.

Fassbender isn't ruling binding arbitration out until he and Peter Cameron, chief negotiator for the employers' association, have seen the details behind the union's call for it. But he still thinks his proposal for reaching a settlement -- the union dropping its wage and benefits proposal to the level of other settled public sector contracts, and then returning to the bargaining table to negotiate class size and composition -- is the best solution.

"There isn't any impediment to getting into serious and meaningful mediation if indeed the BC Teachers' Federation respects the other settlements that we've done with 150,000 other public sector employees and that we sit down at the table, roll up our sleeves, and negotiate the one issue that they seem to be feeling is the most important, and we agree, and that is class size and composition," he said.

Last weekend, independent mediator Vince Ready became the second mediator to walk away from the table because the sides were too far apart. Currently, the teachers are asking for an eight per cent wage increase over five years, while government is offering seven per cent over six. The teachers also want a $5,000 signing bonus upon contract ratification.

Before Ready left, the union dropped $125 million from the $225-million fund it requested to cover retroactive grievances for the government's illegal stripping of class size and composition from teacher contracts in 2002.

The employers' association removed clause E.81, which had called for allowing either side to rip up the contract and start again after the court of appeal ruling, but has not changed its wage or benefit offers since June.

No tax hike for teachers' settlement: minister

Fassbender's distaste for binding arbitration comes from when it was used to settle a contract dispute with the province's doctors in 2001. The education minister "was a taxpayer" at the time, and recalled the arbitrated settlement "had a significant impact on the provincial budget, on individual taxpayers, [and] an increase in the sales tax that really had long lasting ramifications."

This time, the government will not raise taxes to fund one union's contract, he said.

Iker has also called on the employer to drop clause E.80, which puts the current class size limits in the School Act and the $75-million annual Learning Improvement Fund -- $15 million of which goes to CUPE members -- into the collective agreement. It also calls for a fact-finding committee on whether more non-enrolling teachers, like teacher librarians, counsellors, and special needs teachers, should be hired.

The government and the union differ over what the last sentence of the clause means. The union's reading of the employers' stipulation that "[E.80's] provisions supersede and replace all previous Articles that addressed class size, composition, and staffing levels" means E.80 would overrule the B.C. Court of Appeal's decision on what class size and composition language would be in teachers' contracts today if the government hadn't stripped it out in 2002.

But Fassbender said E.80 is simply a framework for negotiating class size and composition.

"It was not and is not, clearly, any attempt to compromise any of the teachers' rights," he said. "I said to Mr. Iker in my office last week, 'If we take the court case and park it until it runs its full course, we can negotiate class size and composition and anything we do there does not compromise the outcome of the court case.'"

In addition, he said, because the government expects to win the appeal, in which case the union has indicated it will go to the Supreme Court of Canada, fixing class size and composition levels can't wait years until all legal options are exhausted.

Griffin's ruling is misunderstood: Fassbender

The education minister told media much of the confusion over E.80 comes from a misunderstanding of the ruling from B.C. Supreme Court Justice Susan Griffin, who found earlier this year that Bill 22, meant to redress the contract stripping of Bill 28, repeated much of the same language.

"She says very clearly that 'teachers have had certain language returned to their collective agreement retroactively,'" he said, quoting Griffin's decision directly.

"However, she goes on to say, 'This does not guarantee that the language is clad in stone as it can and likely will need to be the subject of ongoing collective bargaining,' and that's what E.80 does."

The education minister did not read the next sentence of Griffin's ruling, which adds, "The government remains free to give guidance to the employers' association in collective bargaining as to any fiscal and policy parameters of collective bargaining. However, there needs to be room for movement within those parameters to allow the workers to have meaningful influence over their employer."