Teachers to Vote on Ending Strike for Arbitration

Teachers across the province will vote Sept. 10 on whether to return to the classroom if the government agrees to binding arbitration -- despite the fact the government has already rejected the notion.

If members of the BC Teachers' Federation agree, it would end a strike that's cancelled most summer school programs and three weeks of classes so far. "Today, we're giving government another chance," union president Jim Iker said of the vote this morning.

The union and government have already been using the mediation services of Vince Ready, who has met repeatedly with both sides together and separately since August in an attempt to negotiate a deal.

On Sept. 5 and 6, Ready participated in talks between Iker and Peter Cameron, the chief negotiator for the BC Public School Employers' Association, regarding the union's proposal for binding arbitration, which would involve a third party deciding on a contract that both sides agree beforehand to accept.

On Sept. 6, the government rejected the proposal on advice from Cameron, who said the union couldn't be serious about the proposal because it had not prepared a written version before announcing it the day before, and was not prepared to reduce the cost of its proposals.

"After due diligence and further investigation, it became very clear that [the proposal] was another empty effort to give parents and teachers a false hope that there is a simple way to resolve the dispute," read a statement issued by Education Minister Peter Fassbender.

"Mr. Iker and the BCTF leadership have a duty to their members to negotiate an agreement -- and that requires them to make hard decisions. Instead, the BCTF leadership is trying to avoid having the tough conversation with their members about what is realistic and achievable at the bargaining table."

Pre-conditions and concessions

The government and Cameron also took issue with the concessions teachers requested from the government prior to agreeing to binding arbitration.

The first is to leave all class size and composition and staffing ratio negotiations up to the courts. Both sides are set to appear before the B.C. Court of Appeal in October regarding the B.C. Supreme Court decision on Bill 22 earlier this year, but up until bargaining broke down in August they were attempting to negotiate future class size and composition and staffing ratios.

The second concession is removing clause E.80 from the employers' association's bargaining proposals, which the teachers' union argues will negate the two B.C. Supreme Court decisions on the stripping of class size and composition and staffing ratio language from contracts in 2002.

The union argues both court rulings, from 2011 and 2014, reinstated the language stripped from their contracts. The government maintains it alone should have the power to decide where and how education funding is spent.

The proposal also asks the government to agree to a new fund proposed to "address learning needs," such as extra support for special needs students, to a different bargaining table outside of binding arbitration.

The government has proposed putting the $75-million-a-year Learning Improvement Fund in teachers' contracts for five years to fund such issues. The union maintains that's not enough since it isn't new money, and $15 million has already been promised to CUPE support workers.

Instead, the union has asked for a $225-million fund for addressing these needs, but its arbitration proposal says if the two parties can't agree on the size of the fund, it too will be left up to arbitration.

Policy prevents binding arbitration: Cameron

Both the government and the employers' association, however, have continuously called on the union to reduce its wage and benefit proposals in order to come into the "affordability zone" of other settled public sector contracts, and allow negotiations to focus on class size and composition.

While the union has dropped salary proposals several times since the spring, and recently cut $125 million from the $225-million fund it wants to settle teacher grievances regarding classroom conditions in the 12 years since contracts were stripped, the government maintains more must be done to reach a negotiated settlement.

In addition, Cameron's letter to Fassbender noted the Public Sector Employers' Council, which created the policy under which employers’ associations like the Public School Employers' Association operate, won't let the employers enter into binding arbitration.

Referring to a previous labour dispute with the province's doctors that was settled by binding arbitration in 2001, Cameron wrote: "We know that this policy is based on past experience… where an arbitrator directed that government fund an increase that ignored any fiscal constraints and required a significant increase in taxes."

Iker said the teachers' proposals could be achieved without a major tax hike: "When we look at what we have on the table in terms of the education fund to meet the learning needs of our students, when we look at what we have on the table in terms of preparation time, we're talking about $3 a day per student over a five-year term," he said.

The Tyee contacted the Education Ministry for comment, the office declined but announced a press conference in Victoria at 3 p.m. Iker said that the union's executive recommends teachers vote yes on Wednesday, with results expected Wednesday night.