Bill’s harsh terms more than ‘ cooling off’

Asked for a reaction to the well- attended protest over the government’s labour legislation Tuesday, Premier Christy Clark fired back the novel suggestion that union leaders must not have read the controversial Bill 22.

The teachers and their allies in the labour movement had urged the B. C. Liberals not to impose a contract. “We brought in legislation that did not impose a contract.” Teachers applied for mediation. “We brought in a mediator.”

“They got what they wanted,” Clark told reporters following the noon- hour protest rally in front of the legislature. “The legislation is entirely reasonable.”

Hard to believe she was entirely serious. To be sure, the bill does not impose a contract; rather, it bans strikes for six months, and in the interim, it does provide for a process of mediation. To be sure as well, mediation is allowed only on the “net- zero” mandate imposed by the government and should the process fail, the door is open for the Liberals to recall the legislature and impose a contract.

Still, if that were all there is to Bill 22, Clark might have a point that the legislation is no more than a last- ditch attempt to settle the dispute, not deserving of the ferocious denunciations on display at the protest rally.

But there’s much more to it than that. The matters discussed by Clark — the so- called “coolingoff period,” the mediation and some severe penalties in the event that the teachers defy the strike ban — are covered in Part 1 of the bill.

Then comes Part 2, which, in the words of the bill, “amends various education statutes on a number of matters, including class size, additional compensation for teachers of classes that exceed 30 students and a learning improvement fund.”

The contents are rather less benign than that official description. For instance, there’s this all- embracing restriction on the contents of teachers’ collective agreements: “There must not be included any provision regulating the selection and appointment of teachers under this act; the courses of study, the program of studies or the professional methods and techniques employed by a teacher; restricting or regulating the assignment by a board of teaching duties to principals, vice principals or directors of instruction; limiting a board’s power to employ persons other than teachers to assist teachers in the carrying out of their responsibilities under this act; restricting or regulating a board’s power to establish class size and class composition ...” Take a deep breath.

“Establishing or imposing class size limits, requirements respecting average class sizes or methods for determining class size limits or average class sizes; restricting or regulating a board’s power to assign a student to a class, course or program; restricting or regulating a board’s power to determine staffing levels or ratios or the number of teachers or other staff employed by the board; establishing minimum numbers of teachers or other staff; restricting or regulating a board’s power to determine the number of students assigned to a teacher; or establishing maximum or minimum case loads, staffing loads or teaching loads.”

Other passages would “void” existing provisions of collective agreements, including obligations to negotiate and/ or refer matters to arbitration. Should those powers prove insufficient, government is given additional leeway to settle matters via ministerial fiat.

Plus there’s this: “Despite any decision of a court to the contrary made before or after the coming into force of this section, words, phrases, provisions and parts of provisions deleted from a collective agreement ... must not for any purpose, including any suit or arbitration commenced or continued before or after the coming into force of this section, be considered part of that collective agreement on or after July 1, 2002.”

Ten years retroactive. A would- be override of the courts. Words, phrases, provisions in whole or part, indeed pretty much everything but the punctuation, deleted from collective agreements.

All this is rightly understood in the context of the Liberals’ attempt to undo various provisions in public sector contracts not long after they took office. The Liberals lost a couple of court battles over that legislation. But unlike a similar dispute with health care workers, they were unable to negotiate a compromise with the teachers.

So with a court- imposed deadline looming, they are again trying the legislative route. Moreover, in keeping with several signals from the courts, this attempt may survive a subsequent challenge.

Still, one can readily understand why labour leaders would be setting their hair on fire over the wording of Part 2. It’s the rough stuff that for them puts the lie to all that uplifting talk about balanced legislation and giving it the old school try ( sorry) to reach a negotiated settlement.

And if the premier really thinks that there’s nothing more to this bill than cooling off and mediation, then she’s the one who’s guilty of not having read the legislation.

• My apologies to CKNW reporter Charmaine de Silva for misspelling her name (“da Silva”) Tuesday. D’oh.