VAUGHN PALMER

Why wait so long to declare a stalemate?

VICTORIA

Education Minister George Abbott got pretty much what he expected Thursday with a fact- finder’s verdict that a voluntary settlement was “very unlikely” in the long- running contract dispute with school teachers.

Almost a year of talks. Some 78 face- to- face bargaining sessions. Only nine of more than 1,000 issues settled.

“It does not come as a shock to me,” Abbott told reporters, who gathered in his Victoria office after the release of the report from Trevor Hughes, assistant deputy minister of labour.

Which raised the question that will doubtless be asked by many parents of school- age children, namely why the B. C. Liberals have waited so long to legislate an end to a hopeless dispute.

Abbott’s answer went some distance toward explaining the unusual dynamic of this dispute and how the end game is likely to unfold.

The government, through the labour relations agency for the education sector, has “a legal and constitutional obligation to bargain,” said Abbott. Had it thrown up its hands in the first few weeks, “that would not have been sustainable in a court challenge.” Government can no longer legislate contracts without regard for due process as the Liberals did back in 2002. In the wake of those impositions, public sector unions won recognition at the Supreme Court of Canada for a right to collective bargaining.

But the right, as outlined by the high court, is neither a guarantee that unions will make gains at the bargaining table nor an outright bar against legislated settlements.

Rather it is a right to a process. Government must sit down with the unions, present its proposals and listen to theirs, at length if necessary, before wielding the legislative hammer.

All those considerations were in play Thursday as Abbott emphasized the deliberate pace of negotiations with teachers.

Multiple bargaining sessions. Exhaustive documentation. “It will come as no surprise that there has been a large volume of material exchanged across the bargaining table in the span of one year,” as Hughes noted in a passage that would likely be cited by government as evidence of its seriousness of purpose in the event of a subsequent court challenge.

The resort to a fact finder, rare enough in public sector disputes, was part of the Liberal effort to court- proof themselves. But having covered themselves, they are ready for the inevitable legislated settlement.

“I will be moving as quickly as I can on this,” said Abbott. “I have asked my staff to look at the preparation of a bill or bills that would give effect to a resolution of this dispute.”

A bill or bills. The Liberals have to decide whether to combine the legislated settlement with resolution of a separate, but no less contentious dispute ( rooted in their loss in the courts) over classroom resources.

Most likely they’ll roll the two together. The classroom money was included in this week’s provincial budget as a Learning Improvement Fund, spreading $ 165 million over three years, then $ 75 million every year thereafter.

No money for teachers, but some money for classrooms. It might help soften the public relations side of the decision to insist that teachers will have to live with two years of “net zero,” the same as most other public sector workers.

Given the government unwillingness to budge on a mandate dictated from the cabinet table 2 ½ years ago, Abbott was asked if there was ever any bargaining room in these talks.

He said yes, pointing to the other public sector unions that bargained, made gains and settled under the same mandate.

The Hospital Employees’ Union obtained a raise for its member nurses, paid for with concessions elsewhere in the contract. CUPE, negotiating for school support workers with the same employers’ association as the teachers, recently made modest gains for its members tapping into the money set aside for the Learning Improvement Fund.

One could also mention the recent example of the ferry workers, not strictly part of the public sector any more, who agreed to a two- year contract extension at net zero in exchange for three more at a combined increase of 5.3 per cent.

As to the possible trade- offs for teachers, Abbott pointed to the lingering presence of separate benefit plans, some 60 of them in all. Were those to be combined into a single carrier, the administrative savings, fully costed, could have funded increased compensation in other areas. But talks on that issue went nowhere.

He mused about sending “non- monetary issues” to mediation, which might provide a route to progress down the road. But the great temptation now for the Liberals will be to impose contract concessions on the union as part of that legislative settlement.

A sure provocation for a workforce that will have enough trouble swallowing what is to come. Far better to simply extend the current status quo contract for two years, maybe with the offer of talks on nonmonetary issues once tempers cool.

The union having overplayed its hand by asking for too much, the Liberals would be wise not to do the same with theirs.