Teachers across the province can vote until 8 p.m. Tuesday to determine whether or not job action will be taken in September over a collective bargaining divide between their union and the B.C. Public School Employers Association (BCPSEA).

The British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) is proposing teachers perform classroom duties only starting in September, refraining from any other administrative work or staff meetings in protest over a bargaining stalemate with the BCPSEA, the negotiating body for the provincial government.

BCTF spokesperson Nancy Knickerbocker says BCPSEA's contract proposals "drive a truck through the collective agreement."

"What they're going after is all kinds of contractual provisions that enhance transparency and fairness in hiring and placement of teachers. Eliminating seniority, and stripping all the language regarding posting and filling layoff and assignment provision," she told The Tyee, adding there are no provisions concerning salary increases or classroom size and composition as the teachers requested.

"They want to do yearly evaluations for every teacher—there's no clear process outlined in the documents that they tabled. The ability to fire someone based on a single evaluation, I don't think any HR professional would consider that 21st Century human resources practice.

"We don't know why, but we think they're picking a fight, because these are very draconian proposals."

In a statement emailed to The Tyee, Education Minister George Abbott admitted the negotiations were "difficult as we knew they would be," but he seemed confident the bargaining process would be completed without a wage increase for teachers.

"Teachers are looking for a wage increase at a time when most public sector employees have settled under our government’s net zero mandate – that is obviously a challenge," reads Abbott's statement.

"However, I am hopeful that the two parties will continue to work hard to reach a negotiated resolution."

Knickerbocker says the last job action vote in 2005 saw three-quarters of the union's 41,000 members vote, though she admits that was a more "politically hot" time. If teachers vote no, Knickerbocker says. negotiations will continue without job action, but if teachers are in favour of job action the hope is that administrators and trustees will be forced to pick up duties formerly relegated to teachers, adding pressure to the BCPSEA.

"So these people experience the administrative burden that teachers are normally carrying, and their bosses, the superintendents and the trustees, are going (to the BCPSEA) 'please, let's work together to get a deal, this isn't working for us,'" says Knickerbocker.

The BCTF plans to collect and count the votes for a public release of the results on Wednesday, June 29.

Katie Hyslop reports on education for the Tyee Solutions Society.