JOB ACTION ESCALATES
Teachers picket in front of government offices.
VICTORIA — B. C. teachers escalated their fight against government Tuesday, erecting picket lines around some government offices and marching on the legislature in droves to speak out against a bill that will impose a mediator and suspend all legal job action.
“This bill is the most punitive, brutal piece of legislation I’ve ever seen,” B. C. Teachers’ Federation president Susan Lambert said Tuesday, surrounded by an estimated 5,000 teachers and other supporters on the legislature lawn.
Lambert told reporters that teachers will return to their classrooms Thursday, ending a three- day legal walkout as planned.
But she didn’t rule out further job action.
“What we’re talking about is resisting undemocratic, illegal legislation,” she said. “It will be up to our members to determine how to do that,” she continued, not willing to speculate on what might be next but vowing to give parents proper notice once any decisions are made.
Speaking after the rally, Premier Christy Clark urged the union to recognize the inevitable passage of Bill 22.
“The conclusion of this is inevitable. Everyone has seen the legislation that brings in a mediator and requires a coolingoff period for all this job action, and that legislation is going to pass,” said Clark. “So I’m not sure what their purpose is in closing down schools when it isn’t going to do anything to change the outcome.”
Early Tuesday morning, picket lines went up at several government offices around Victoria.
Finance Minister Kevin Falcon responded within hours, asking the Labour Relations Board for an immediate injunction.
“Public servants and union members are being harassed and dissuaded from showing up at work,” he said, adding he had heard isolated reports of similar picket lines in areas of the Lower Mainland.
“If we’re successful, the injunction would clarify that the activity the teachers are engaged in is illegal activity,” he added.
“We are going to seek, and we hope that we will receive, the ability to issue fines to ensure that this kind of activity doesn’t continue.”
By late afternoon, the LRB deemed a hearing would not be necessary in the matter.
“The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, B. C. Government and Services Employees’ Union and the British Columbia Federation of Labour have committed that the picketing has ceased and there is no intention for there to be any further picketing in B. C.,” read a decision from Labour Relations Board vice- chair Allison Matacheskie. “In light of these commitments, I have decided that an expedited hearing is not required.”
Matacheskie said a hearing would happen immediately if any more picketing occurs.
After the decision, Lambert denied the picketing in Victoria was organized by the central union.
“I’m not quite sure what happened,” she said.
“There was no organized picketing on the part of the B. C. Teachers’ Federation. I think there were some people who were on the lines in Victoria this morning, but that was something done locally.”
She added that despite the LRB decision, more picket lines are not completely out of the question. “I am going to keep every option open,” she said.
“It’s not me that makes the decision in this union, it’s my members and I have to ask my members what they want to do, and then we make it happen.”
While Lambert was mostly focused on the implications of the bill for teachers and schools, other labour leaders addressing Tuesday’s rally declared a more general willingness to dig in and oppose the government.
“We’re hearing a government on a rampage against working people and that’s a bad thing,” said B. C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair. “What these people came to say today was ‘ enough,’” he said, referring to representatives of other unions who came to the rally in support of teachers.
“They came here because they were mad. They were mad not only at what’s happened to teachers but they think this government is going to do it to them. They think they’re going to come back and do it to them in the next round of bargaining because once they get the taste of victory, this government is vicious.”
Barry O’neill, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees of British Columbia, said he is angry “with what’s going on with our government in this province.
“Ms. Clark and Mr. Falcon, you need to understand that we’re not going away this time — not now, not ever.”
New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix also spoke at the rally, calling himself “proteacher” and calling for the appointment of a mediator who is not limited by the government’s net- zero bargaining mandate. “In the days that follow, every single NDP MLA will speak in the debate against this unfair legislation,” he said.
Education Minister George Abbott rejected the idea of an independent mediator, calling on Dix to say where the money would come from to fund any raises that an independent mediator may prescribe outside the net- zero mandate. “It’s all splendid for Mr. Dix, who doesn’t have to apparently explain himself, to say we can move away from a net- zero mandate, but what does that mean?”
“I find it just terribly unconstructive in the world of labour relations for him to be creating the impression that an NDP government would be doing something other than net zero, but not tell us what that other thing would be,” said Abbott.
Also on Tuesday, Abbott denied accusations by the BCTF that he is trying to strip contracts of seniority protections. The accusations relate to the government’s proposal for a provincewide seniority clause that would ensure qualifications carry more weight than seniority in teacher appointments.