Hard bargaining awaits province, teachers

Glen Hansman, president of the B.C. Teachers Federation, was in the courthouse the day the union won a landmark case against Christy Clark’s previous Liberal government.

“It was a great day,” Hansman told me.

“Wow, what a change that has come to the B.C. education system since then.” What a change, indeed. The Supreme Court of Canada decision reversed contract concessions rammed through by the Liberals. It forced the government to restore stripped-out language on class size, supports for special-needs kids and staffing ratios for specialist teachers like librarians and school counsellors.

The result: An unprecedented teacher-hiring frenzy that rapidly added 3,700 new teachers to the system.

But, two years later, the celebrations have died down. Now a fresh round of contract bargaining looms with the new NDP government.

“There are going to be some challenges,” Hansman said.

Chief among them: A union that wants significant pay raises for its members, and a government determined not to cough up more than two per cent a year.

The government has already settled a series of three-year contracts with other public-sector unions containing an annual twoper-cent raise in each year. Those same unions also negotiated so-called “me-too clauses” that guarantee matching money if any other union bags a bigger raise.

Are the teachers willing to settle for two per cent a year?

“Two-two-and-two isn’t going to cut it when we’re looking at starting wages,” Hansman said, insisting newly hired teachers are underpaid. He said a new teacher makes about $48,000 to start, about $15,000 less than teachers in other Western provinces.

A two-per-cent raise would barely make a dent in the discrepancy, but Hansman said that doesn’t mean the government’s bargaining mandate can’t be met.

“There are ways of restructuring things that might satisfy us,” he said, suggesting a shortened salary grid might be on the bargaining table. That would reduce the time it takes for a teacher to climb the seniority ladder and make more money.

But even if the sticky salary question can be settled, other deal-breakers loom.

Hansman said the union wants the government to hire more substitute teachers, saying shortages are so bad in some regions that even volunteers and parents are teaching kids.

“The shortage needs to be addressed,” he said, adding the shortfall of substitutes is on top of 360 existing-teacher vacancies in the system.

“We need about a thousand more people,” he said.

A thousand more teachers? The government better get ready for some hard bargaining. And parents should brace for yet another strike if talks go poorly.