Teachers deserve better

Glen Hansman, president of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, has served notice that teachers will be seeking higher salaries in negotiations this year, and who can blame them? B.C. teachers are among the lowest paid in the country.

Hansman says teachers in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario earn about $20,000 a year more than teachers here. They deserve better.

B.C. is already scrambling to find enough teachers in the wake of the Supreme Court decision dictating staffing levels following the B.C. Liberals’ contract-breaking fiasco. The wage gap makes it more difficult to recruit teachers from out of the province, and that means school programs are suffering.

Years of hostility and antagonism between teachers and the provincial government appear to be at an end. At the federation’s annual convention this week, Premier John Horgan promised a more respectful relationship. He said the government, with input from teachers, plans to craft a better funding formula for school districts, replacing the current “one size fits all” formula.

He didn’t get into salary levels, nor should he have — that’s a matter for contract negotiations. And Hansman, for his part, noted that no one expects the 25 per cent gap in pay between B.C. and Alberta teachers to be closed in one leap.

Negotiations are likely to be tough. The teachers want — and deserve — more money, while the government has to be mindful of the public purse. It will take patience, tolerance and co-operation to work out a long-term approach to correct a problem years in the making.

It isn’t just about teachers’ welfare. A whole generation of B.C. students has started and completed school in an atmosphere of uncertainty, never knowing when labour strife would interrupt their education.

Let’s hope that era is truly at an end.