Liberals prepare to end teachers’ dispute
Legislation in the works to end dispute without negotiated settlement
VICTORIA — Education Minister George Abbott has asked his staff to prepare legislation that would end a labour dispute with teachers, after a ministry fact-finder determined there is no hope of reaching a settlement.
“A freely negotiated collective agreement is an impossibility,” Abbott said Thursday.
He said staff will work on the legislation this weekend.
“I will be moving as quickly as I can on this,” the minister said.
A senior B.C. government bureaucrat says a negotiated deal with the B.C. Teachers Federation is “very unlikely.”
Trevor Hughes, assistant deputy minister of industrial relations, issued his report to Labour Minister Margaret Macdiarmid on Thursday morning.
“Despite almost one year of negotiations and more than 75 face to face sessions, the parties have not been able to narrow the outstanding issues,” the government said in a news release.
Abbott will use the report to determine the Liberal government’s next move.
He requested the report on Feb. 9 after dismissing teachers’ demands for a 15-per-cent pay increase over three years.
The union’s demands violated the provincial government’s “netzero mandate,” which says publicsector employees can only get a wage increase if they find savings elsewhere in their contracts, Abbott said.
The teachers’ federation, which represents 41,000 teachers across the province, has been without a contract since last June.