By E. Wayne Ross

Forty-two thousand teachers in British Columbia walked out of the classroom and on to the picket line in October, demanding improved working and learning conditions from the government as well as salary increases. The provincial government refused to negotiate with teachers and passed legislation imposing a new two-year contract on teachers with no improvements of conditions or wages.

Teachers defied the back to work legislation — which resulted in a civil contempt judgment against the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (B.C.T.F.), freezing of the union’s assets, and a $500,000 fine, the largest civil contempt penalty in B.C. history. The province’s 600,000 public school students were out of school for two weeks, before teachers agreed to an independent mediator’s recommendations and returned to work.

“Essential service” designation, legislated contracts and the run up to the current strike

Violation of International Labor Agreements

At the same time, unions representing teachers, nurses, college educators, health science professionals, and government workers in B.C. all filed formal complaints with the International Labour Organization (ILO) challenging six laws pertaining to the right to strike and collective bargaining in the health and education sectors as a result of essential service designations.

After extensive investigation, the International Labour Organization concluded in March 2003 that six laws enacted by the B.C. Liberal government violated international conventions to which Canada is a signatory.

The ruling by the ILO affirmed the right of B.C. public service workers to bargain collectively and, if necessary, to go on strike and confirmed that the B.C. Liberals’ essential services laws were contravening international law.

The B.C. Liberal government ignored the ILO’s judgment. When the government imposed another contract on teachers through passage of Bill 12 in September 2005, it was contravening a directive by the ILO “to avoid in future having recourse to such legislated settlement.” The government’s actions were a direct attack on the freedom of association principles that the espoused in the ILO ruling.

When the B.C. government lawyers provided arguments to the ILO in 2002 about why it had legislated contracts, it made a number of claims that are clearly not valid today.

In 2002, the B.C. government claimed that expenditures on services had created “unsustainable pressures on the budget.” Yet in 2004, the B.C. government had a $2 billion surplus, and this year it is projecting more than $1.5 billion in surplus. (See “Public Schools and Neoliberal Madness in Canada” in the February 2005 issue of Substance.)

In 2002, the B.C. government said, “public sector wage settlements have surpassed private sector increases.” While the current government is demanding zero-zero-zero for all public-sector employees, including teachers, the private sector is paying average 3.5 percent increases for its employees this year.

In 2002, the B.C. government told the ILO, “the provincial rate of unemployment has exceeded the national average since 1998.” During the 2005 election, the B.C. Liberal’s claimed, “The unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent from 6.1 percent in April, its lowest point since January 1981 and the second-lowest monthly rate since records began in 1976.”

In 2002, the B.C. government told the ILO that, “the average number of employees in key public sector areas (education, health, social services, and public administration) has increased significantly in the last three years.” In the intervening years, employment in public services declined, with 2,600 fewer full-time teaching positions.

In 2002, the B.C. government claimed to the ILO that, “any restrictions on collective bargaining or on the right to strike were exceptional measures, enacted in view of the difficult economic and fiscal situation.” None of these conditions used by the government to justify the attacks on collective bargaining in violation of international conventions 2002 exist today, yet the government has continued violate international law imposing contracts and refusing to negotiate working conditions with teachers.

In June 2004, the contract previously imposed on B.C. teachers expired and bargaining began between the B.C.T.F and the British Columbia Public School Employers Association (BCPSEA), which is the bargaining agent for the province’s 60 public school boards. The BCPSEA takes its direction from the government and during the negotiations the BCPSEA could not discuss improvement of learning conditions or any salary increases in light of the government’s declaration that all public sector workers would be given “zero-zero-zero” contracts.

Teachers and school boards began province-wide bargaining in 1993 and since then teachers have been subjected to government imposed contracts four times.

The two major issues (aside from demands that the government actually negotiate rather than legislate a contract) for the teachers are improved salaries and improved working and learning conditions.

Salary gap between B.C. and other provinces

On the salary front, teachers have seen their earnings lag behind inflation by about four percent over the last seven years. However, B.C. teachers justified their demands for salary increases (which they pegged at 3 percent per year for three years) in two ways. First, they argued that teachers in Alberta and Ontario, with the same qualifications and experience, make $10,000 or more annually for the same work.

Jill Barclay, a special education teacher at Charles Dickens Elementary on Vancouver’s eastside, came to B.C. from Ontario 10 years ago. She said that if she had remained a teacher in Ontario she would be making $11,000 more than she does today.

According to the B.C.T.F., a new classroom teacher with less than one year of experience, hired full-time in Vancouver in September 2005, would earn about $42,700 per annum. A teacher in Edmonton with the same experience would earn about $48,300, or $5,600 more than the teacher in Vancouver.

A teacher in Vancouver at the top of the salary scale (11 years experience) would earn $63,700, and an Edmonton teacher with the same experience would earn $11,200 more. With zero-percent increases for teachers in Vancouver (compared to 10.2 percent in Ottawa and Toronto and an estimated 6.5 percent in Edmonton), Vancouver teachers will increasingly fall behind. And by 2007, teachers at the top of the salary scale would earn between $12,500 and $14,000 less than teachers with the same experience in these other cities. The differences between Vancouver teachers and other teachers are even greater when the cost of living is taken into account.

Moreover, B.C. school administrators are the highest paid in Canada, according to a cross-Canada survey carried out by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation. Not only do B.C. administrators make more money than administrators in other provinces, but the gap between teacher and administrator salaries in B.C. is the highest in the country as well.

Another justification for teacher salary demands is that the B.C. economy is booming and the government has a huge budget surplus as a result. Teachers’ logic is if the provincial government can afford to reduce corporate taxes, why can’t it provide its teachers with a reasonable salary increase?

Working and learning conditions

The second major is issue in the current crisis is working and learning conditions in B.C. schools. In the past four years there has been serious deterioration of teaching and learning conditions in the schools. The provincial government placed budget restrictions on the schools and, as a result, school boards were forced to lay off thousands of teachers (including 25 percent of the teacher-librarians in the province).

While the government infused an additional $150 million into public education this year, the expectation is that next year school budgets will once again become subject to a freeze. (The B.C. Liberal Party’s budget documents for 2005 forecast a two-year school funding freeze.) This infusion of money will help improve conditions but does not come close to restoring the learning conditions that existed prior to Liberal cuts to education funding and this funding has no money for salary increases.

Between 2001 and 2004, the provincial schools lost 2,609 teaching positions. About 700 of those can be attributed to declining enrolment, but 1,900 positions simply reduced services to students through larger classes and fewer support teachers. School districts have reported to the province that they are hiring 630 more teachers this year. This restores less than one third of the number of teaching positions cut beyond those related to declining enrolment.

In addition, teachers are being replaced by education assistants without professional training. While 2,609 teaching positions disappeared, boards hired 265 more education assistants in 2004 than in 2001. They are projecting hiring another 507 this year. This means that library technicians have often replaced teacher-librarians. Special education assistants have been hired to work with students with special needs, instead of teachers with the training and teaching experience to provide education that meets diverse needs in inclusive schools.

The teaching and learning conditions, particularly the importance of class size and class composition, have been the primary emphasis of the B.C.T.F.’s campaign. However, teachers saw the government’s refusal to offer salary increases as an insult added to injury.

Heidi Gonzalez, an elementary teacher in Delta, put it this way, “With regard to teacher pay, teachers never go into the profession to get rich… No one ever says I want to be a ‘rich teacher’ when I grow up… However, if we have no choice but to work under these dilapidating conditions, then at least let our salaries keep up with inflation and neighboring provinces.

“If we are being forced to work harder to educate our future, if we are forced to make do with what is given us, then at least show us a salary increase to give us some form of consolation.”

Barclay, says the cuts have had a particularly negative impact on special education services. “Over the years of cutting and cutting the whole system is just so stretched, I’m really worried it’s at the point of collapsing. I have a son who is coming into the system in two years and I wonder what’s going to be there for him,” she said.

Barclay described the loss of personnel support and special education funding to the point that special education administrators no longer have time to visit schools, instead they are caught up in paper work for the 18,000 screenings conducted every year in the district.

Cuts have hurt local schools

Charles Dickens school used to have teachers who were designated to work with teachers and students on technology and who also helped to keep all the computers running. Those resources have been cut and the computer in her room has been broken since last year. The outside computer technician has made one visit to the school this year and the computer remains broken and unused.

“We have a wonderful administration here and everyone works together,” Barclay said, “but I’ve been sitting in staff meetings where we’ve been told that there is not enough paper to last us the entire year. So if you don’t stop using so much paper you’re going to have to start buying your own. So I think, excuse me, are nurses asked to go out and buy their own needles?”

At nearby Sir Richard McBride Elementary, teachers tell similar tales of the damage produced by years of cuts to public education. Christy Wong says that McBride teachers have been spending thousands of dollars of their own money to buy supplies for their classrooms. Teachers get $75 per year in discretionary money; and resource teachers receive only $35 per year. As a result, they are stuck with textbooks full of out-dated information. Resource teacher Anne Lee described a diagnostic test she has to use that includes item describing a future where we might “some day have telephones without wires.”

Surrey, B.C. teacher Julia MacRae told Substance, “I teach in a drafty, dusty, leaking portable, where the walkway leading to it is flooded in every rainstorm. The kids complain about it.” But MacRae says that she is in fact “glad to be out there as the portables are larger than the regular classrooms, and so I have enough room for my now larger classes.”

Gonzalez says she has seen dramatic changes in her 7 years of teaching, but that class size is not as big an issue for her as class composition. “My 32 grade 4/5 students last year felt like a [combined] grade 2, 3, 4, 5 class.

“Students who 4 years ago would be able to go to a resource room to learn how to read are now in my class as a result of that resource room closing…those students are now receiving spontaneous bouts of Learning Assistance.”

She says her average achieving students who previously would be getting learning assistance are now displaced. “If I had a class of 32 students who could work at the grade 4/5 instructional level, class size would not be an issue. Now, since class composition cannot be controlled, as a result of Resource Room closures, special program closures, etc., class size is the next best thing to manage,” Gonzales said.

Support for teachers has also diminished in recent years at a time when class composition has created more demanding conditions for teachers, especially as there has been an increasing number of special needs students without the concomitant increase in instructional support. “I used to have a TA for at least half the day if I had one severely special needs student,” Gonzalez said.

“Last year, I had a student with a cochlear implant, a severely learning disabled student, 3 ADHD students, a student with mild autism, Asperger’s, and ADHD, and a highly anxious student…I had to fight for a teaching assistant. With the exception of the student with a cochlear implant, who had a TA for 2 hours a week, there was not one TA assigned to any of those students. I had to fight for one to be placed in my class for 10 hours a week,” Gonzalez said.

Teachers unify in an ‘illegal’ strike

Paul Orlowski, who teaches at Kitsilano Secondary School in Vancouver, emphasizes the broader context of why the teachers were willing defy the back to work legislation and walkout illegally. “The current wildcat teachers strike must be seen in a much larger context than how the [mainstream] media frames it. It’s not only about wages, or even working conditions.”

“Yes, it is about negotiating within a collective bargaining arrangement rather than imposing contracts with no changes whatsoever. But it is also about standing up for our civil society. And despite the current policy trends in many parts of Canada and the U.S., there is absolutely nothing radical about this kind of non-violent action,” Orlowski said.

Orlowski believes that government, particular Premier Campbell, is hypocritical its charges that teachers are setting a bad example with the wildcat strike. “Although the corporate media is emphasizing how wrong it is for teachers to break the law, many in the public remember that it was this very same premier who broke the law in Hawaii in 2003 when he got behind the wheel of his car after drinking so much alcohol at a party that he was found to be several times over the legal drinking limit. Our premier did not step down, nor did he thank the police officer for stopping him from putting the public in danger. So don’t talk to us of the evils of breaking the law. Teachers engaging in a wildcat strike have nothing on that kind of behavior,” Orlowski said.

Gonzalez summed the reasons for striking by saying “I used to believe that the more experienced teachers were generally resistant to change and longed for the ‘good old days.’ However, more and more I’ve realized that those ‘good old days’ collectively represented a time when teaching conditions were much more conducive to effective learning…This strike is for our students. It is for improvement in learning conditions in the classroom. It is for future teachers in the profession who have no idea that the ‘good old days’ actually existed.”

An ‘illegal’ strike

After working for a full year without a contract and with no sign that the government would take action to reverse the trend of deteriorating conditions in B.C. schools, the B.C.T.F. Representative Assembly called for a strike vote in September.

“We have been very outspoken about the decline in the quality of educational services we are able to offer,” B.C.T.F. President Jinny Sims said. “Too many students are not getting the support they need to be successful. Teachers have carried on as best we can, trying to fill the gaps and make do with less. But we all know that, ultimately, this trend can’t be allowed to continue.”

On September 23, More than 88 percent of teachers voted “yes” to strike in order to achieve improvements in this round of negotiations. In all, 31,740 teachers cast a ballot, with 27,990 voting “yes.” Over 80 percent of teachers in schools and teachers on call participated. Simultaneous with the announcement of job actions, the teachers announced they were seeking a 15 percent wage increase over three years.

If there was no major progress in bargaining, B.C.T.F. president Jinny Sims, promised a series of escalating job actions starting with no out-of-class student supervision; no meetings with management; mo attendance reports; no communication with principals. This would be followed by rotating strikes two weeks later and a full-strike, province-wide walkout two weeks after that.

In response, the B.C. government passed legislation (Bill 12), which imposed a two-year contract on the teachers that included no wage increases and no improvements for teaching and learning conditions and effectively negated the teachers’ right to strike or take other job action to defend their common interests as employees of the public school system and teachers of the province’s students.

Enraged teachers then voted 90.5 percent to protest the legislation. After Bill 12 was passed, the Labor Relations Board told teachers to immediately resume their duties and work schedules, and ordered them to refrain from picketing at or near schools. It also told the union to refrain from declaring or authorizing a strike.

Strike begins October 7, 2005

Saying they would not be bullied into a legislated deal, on October 7 teachers defied the government, Labor Relations Board and the courts and walked out of classrooms in what was declared an illegal strike. Sims and the B.C.T.F. continued to insist that they were ready and willing to negotiate “24/7,” but B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and his Labor minister Mike de Jong refused to negotiate with the teachers while they defied the Bill 12.

“When you’re a law-abiding citizen, you don’t get to pick and choose which laws you want to abide by,” de Jong told reporters. And stating what would become a government mantra in coming days he added, “this is not the kind of example you would expect from people who are teaching our children.”

“Our teachers know what the legislation means. They’re saying that there are some laws that are so bad, so flawed you have to take a stand,” Sims told The Globe and Mail. “They could threaten us with fines. They could even threaten to put me in jail.”

On October 9, in a rare Sunday hearing on a holiday weekend, Madam Justice Brenda Brown of the B.C. Supreme Court found the teachers’ union in contempt of court. The contempt application was made by the province’s school boards, which had earlier filed a cease-and-desist order from the B.C. Labor Relations Board in the Supreme Court, giving it the legal effect of a court order. Brown said her judgment was not based upon whether the legislation teachers were protesting was fair or whether the teachers’ actions were justifiable.

“The issue before me is both narrower — confined to the consideration of the breach of the [LRB] order on Oct. 6 — and wider — concerned with the obligations of every citizen to obey court orders and the implications for democratic society if citizens choose which orders they will obey and which they will breach,” Brown said.

“It is the rule of law, in this case obedience to court orders, which permits us to enjoy rights and liberties in a civilized and democratic society,” the judge said. “These are fragile social constructs which are seriously weakened when a group refuses to obey orders from the court. If one may breach a court order, so may another, leaving none of us with rights or privileges.”

Labor movement and public rally to teachers’ cause

Over the course of the two-week strike the labor movement and the public showed strong backing for the teachers.

At the end of the second day of picketing, over 5,000 protesters gathered at B.C. Liberal Party offices in downtown Vancouver to protest Bill 12. Amidst calls for a general strike, labor leaders from B.C. and across Canada delivered messages of solidarity with the teachers. The rally, sponsored by the British Columbia Labour Federation, included a strong showing of support of workers from other sectors including CUPE, Longshoremen, IBEW, Hospital Employee’s Union, B.C. Government and Services Employees’ Union, Telecommunications Workers Union (and others), as well many parents, and students.

At the rally, Sims vowed that teachers would not return to work until a negotiated settlement was reached. “Like other working people we have the right to negotiate improvements in our students’ learning conditions, which happen to be our working conditions and we will never apologize in asking to negotiate a fair salary settlement,” she said.

The Vancouver rally was the start of a series of coordinated protests by B.C. labor organizations, the largest of which shut down Victoria, the provincial capital on October 17.

An estimated 20,000 teachers and other union members, along with parents and students gathered on the Legislative Grounds in front of the Parliament Buildings demanding that the government repeal Bill 12 and engage in negotiations with the teachers. The shouts of the crowd were loud enough to force the closing of doors and windows in the Parliament Building and even still the protest was heard indoors by the politicians.

“I say to Mr. Campbell on behalf of British Columbians: Get off the high horse and get down to the table and start talking,” B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair told protesters.

Canadian Teachers’ Federation President Winston Carter said they won’t stand idly by and allow a member organization to be attacked by what he called a ‘wrong-headed’ government.

“We are afraid, we are scared as a teachers federation that this is just a thin wedge and that other unions and all the public sector groups throughout Canada are going to be in the same boat the next time round if the government of this province gets away with this draconian measures that they’re employing at this point in time,” Carter said.

When asked whether the dispute could ignite a national general strike, Carter said it’s important to make every public sector group in Canada aware of the B.C.T.F. dispute, but it will be up to each organization to decide how to support B.C. teachers.

Thousands of union members in Greater Victoria and all Canadian Union of Public Employee (CUPE) members on Vancouver Island were off the job in protest of the legislation imposed by the government on teachers. As a result, government services were disrupted and public transit was at a standstill. Classes were affected at Camosun College and the University of Victoria.

The Victoria protest was followed by mass solidarity walkouts across the province including the East and West Kootenay regions of B.C.; and by CUPE members in Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.

Business leaders claim “anarchy” looms

The protests captured the attention of the B.C. business community. The president of the B.C. Business Council, Jerry Lampert told the media that the B.C. Federation of Labor was leading the province down the “quick road to anarchy. “We cannot have anarchy and chaos in the province,” he said. “It can only serve to undermine both the economic and social aspects of this great province.” Lampert said he supports people’s right to demonstrate, but said that changes when they break the law.

Kevin Evans of the Coalition of B.C. Businesses said the teachers strike was “harkening back to the bad old days of British Columbia.” Evans told the media he was concerned about this strike and the precedent being set as other unions approach deadlines in their own collective agreements.

The Faculties of Education at the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University as well as the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of British Columbia took public positions in support of the striking teachers.

Over 500 students, staff and faculty participated in a teach-in and rally for the teachers at UBC which included speeches from UBC student teachers Jenien Tang and Joe Mergern, University Hill Secondary School students Layne Young and Alicia Smith as well as teachers, B.C.T.F. and CUPE officials, and Vancouver School Board Trustee Noel Herron.

Colleen Garbe, president of CUPE 116 gave a passionate speech highlighting the importance of worker solidarity in the face of attacks on collective bargaining rights in British Columbia.

Education professor, and event co-organizer, Stephen Petrina told the student teachers in the crowd, “it is crucial, that you adopt a strong pro-union position. Your future depends on it. Since 2001, this Liberal government cut 2600 teachers from the system. This means that when you leave the University of British Columbia, your chances of finding a full-time teaching job is getting slimmer and slimmer.... Since 1996, union density in Canada has been declining. In 1999, union density dropped below the important level of 30%. The highest density rates are in education, where 70% of all teachers in Canada are union members. Please act on this privilege and right on behalf of all workers!”

In the days just before the strike, polls taken for the B.C.T.F. showed 56 per cent of British Columbians supported the teachers’ position, compared with about 19 per cent who backed the government. That support remained steady and even increased as the strike moved into its second week. An Ipsos Reid poll found that 61 percent of the public backed the teachers’ province-wide illegal strike. A similar poll by Ipsos Reid a week earlier pegged public support at 55 percent, with 33 percent backing the government.

Government, courts crank up the pressure on teachers

While public support was growing and the teachers and their allies were protesting across the province, the government and courts were turning up the heat. Four days after Madam Justice Brown found the teachers in contempt of court, she ordered the teachers’ union funds to be placed in a trusteeship as punishment for their continued strike; being in contempt of court. The decision prevented union members from receiving $50 a day in strike pay and restricted the union’s use of fund to continue its campaign of civil disobedience.

The day of the mass protest in Victoria, the criminal branch of the provincial Attorney-General Minister appointed prominent Vancouver lawyer Len Doust as an independent special prosecutor to examine whether criminal contempt charges were warranted against the teachers and, if so, whether it would be in the public interest to proceed to lay charges.

Doust told Madam Justice Brown “it has become apparent that some of the [B.C.T.F.’s conduct] displayed to date comes perilously close to criminal contempt of court,” but that he would be proceed cautiously and wait for direction from the court.

At a news conference Premier Campbell said there is “no excuse to break the law and show such flagrant contempt for the courts of British Columbia.” Campbell said he is willing to meet with teachers, but he says it won’t be to renegotiate the collective agreement. He said the union must order its teachers back to their classrooms to avoid the possibility of criminal charges.

B.C.T.F. president Jinny Sims responded to Campbell by saying “There is a big difference between breaking the law and having a law designed to break you. We will not be broken.” Sims also said that she and other union leaders were prepared to deal with the consequences of the wildcat strike, even if it meant fines and/or jail time.

The government blinks, then teachers return to class with mixed feelings

As the job actions spread across the province and the B.C. Federation of Labor promised more shut downs, including Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, mediator Vince Ready stepped into the fray. Ready, who had been appointed to recommend a new system of bargaining for future contracts before the strike began, began meeting with government and union officials on Tuesday, October 18. Ready is a legendary figure in B.C., widely respected for his skills in mediating tough labor disputes.

Union president Sims said of Ready’s appointment as mediator, “this gives us a ray of hope.” But she also said that the union needs guarantees that talks will result in action before she will ask her members to vote on whether they are ready to return to work.

Ready’s involvement in the standoff was widely perceived as the equivalent of the government blinking. With public support still strong after the massive demonstration in Victoria, it was clear that the government had misread not only the teachers’ resolve, but public sentiment.

University of British Columbia professor Mark Thompson told the Vancouver Sun “I think they underestimated how strong the teachers would be and how they would stand up to the court injunction.”

The Liberal government refused to say whether it has specifically asked Ready to facilitate talks between teachers and the BCPSEA. Ready’s involvement was announced by the B.C.T.F. The government did not want to look like it capitulated to an illegal strike after repeatedly stating it would not negotiate until teachers had return to the classroom. Labor Minister de Jong told the media that Ready was doing the job previously announced.

It did not take long for the “ray of hope” to dissipate. As Ready almost immediately declared an impasse between the teachers and the employers. After one day of talks, on Thursday October 20, Ready said the parties are “just too far apart to come to a facilitated agreement or any kind of negotiated agreement.”

Ready made his announcement after the B.C.T.F. publicly released their own proposals to end the dispute. Ready issued is own set of non-binding recommendations, which included $100 million worth of provisions to improve salaries, benefits, and teaching and learning conditions. Which included:

• The government spend $40 million to harmonize teachers salaries across districts (this represents a 2 percent increase for teachers province-wide; teachers were seeking a 15 percent pay raise);
• The government make a one-time payment of $40 million to the B.C.T.F.’s long-term disability trust (teachers were interested in having a government take over payment of the premiums);
• The government provide $5.2 million to raise teacher-on-call pay to $190 per day (current average is $165) and the TOCs would be bumped to the regular pay scale after three day on the same assignment and would also gain seniority;
• The government put an extra $20 million toward improving class sizes and special-needs students supports now and consider doing so on an ongoing basis and consult the B.C.T.F. about changing the class-size limits in the School Act;
• The government amend the School Act to include class-size limitations in Grades 4-12;
• The government increase the number of teacher representatives at the Learning Roundtable, where stakeholders in public education would meet and discuss problems faced by public schools;
• The government and teachers establish a regular channel for ongoing communications.

The B.C. Liberal government immediately and “unconditionally” accepted the Ready recommendations.

Teachers’ union hit with $500 million fine

On Friday, October 21, the B.C.T.F. was hit with a huge $500 million fine for contempt of court for refusing to end its illegal strike. Madam Justice Brown of the B.C. Supreme Court said the court had no choice but to punish teachers for their refusal to obey her earlier back-to-work order.

Brown noted the fine would have been “significantly larger,” but said she took into consideration the fact the province and teachers are close to reaching a deal to end the strike. She also warned the B.C.T.F. that additional penalties could be imposed depending on future developments in the teachers’ contract dispute.

The same day, Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labor backed his off support of the teachers’ protests. Even before anyone had even seen the recommendations, Sinclair called off the B.C. Federation of Labor’s involvement in rallies and job actions planned for Vancouver and Fraser Valley and demanded that the Ready recommendations be put to a vote by the BCTF membership.

Many teachers were furious over this Sinclair’s actions. CUPE B.C. did, however, follow through on its commitment to protest in solidarity with the teachers and over 10,000 CUPE members put their “tools down” for the day and attended rallies in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.

After a day of analysis, and in a surprise move, the B.C.T.F. leadership reluctantly endorsed the recommendations. “We are recommending that you accept the Ready report,” Sims told teachers at Burnaby Central Secondary School on Saturday, October 22.

“I don’t want you to vote the way Jinny Sims wants you to vote, I want you to vote your conscience,” she said.

“We are deeply disappointed that the government did not see fit to agree to a letter that would confirm its commitment to class size limits for students in Grades 4 to 12 and to addressing class composition problems. However, we know that parents share our determination to achieve improved learning conditions for students. So we are confident that government will enshrine in the School Act these much-needed improvements to benefit all children in B.C. schools,” Sims said.

Teachers vote to end two-week strike

There were mixed feelings among the rank and file about accepting the Ready report, but teachers voted 77 per cent in favor of ending a two-week wildcat strike. Just over 30,000 of B.C.’s estimated 42,000 teachers took part in the vote on Ready’s report. Most schools reopened on October 24.

“Teachers have voted by a large majority to end our campaign of civil disobedience and to return to work tomorrow,” Sims said. “We will do so with our heads held high, and our hearts touched by the many gestures of kindness and solidarity we have experienced in the past two weeks.”

While many teachers were anxious to return to work, key goals identify by the B.C.T.F. were not achieved including: full, free collective bargaining for teachers; return of contract language on working and learning conditions stripped from previous contacts; and a fair salary increase.

Based on these reasons the Surrey Teachers Association recommended that their members vote “no.” The $100 million worth of provisions in the Ready report amounts to less than what was saved by the government on teacher salaries during the two-week strike. Some B.C.T.F. members were against returning to classrooms because the government did not provide a written commitment regarding class size and composition.

A severe lack of trust remains as teachers return to work and began participating in Learning Roundtable discussions with the government, school boards, and parent representatives.

“This government has enacted six pieces of legislation targeting teachers’ rights and profession,” Sims noted. “These actions have undermined our trust in this government.”

Sims said teachers will be watching and holding this government accountable for their promises to amend the School Act to include firm class-size limits for students in Grades 4 through 12, and to address the serious issues of class composition and support for students with special needs.

Sims and three other B.C.T.F. representatives attended the first meeting of the Learning Roundtable in Victoria on October 24. “We will be bringing a clear message from the thousands of people with whom we have walked and talked these past two weeks,” Sims said. “British Columbians support teachers’ speaking out for students, they care deeply about the learning conditions in their children’s classrooms, and they want the government to reinvest in a strong and stable public school system.”

Contract talks are set to begin next spring.As schools resumed at the end of October, hundreds of thousands of teachers, students and parents across the province were assessing the meaning of what had taken place.