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A strike for education: BC Liberals and #BCed

Tyson Kelsall
Contributor

t is not a new discovery. Neo-liberals, like

the ones that form British Columbia’s
current majority government, have a
problem with the public sector unions.
They have a problem with organized labour
in general. The messiah of neoliberalism
and privatization, Ronald Reagan, famously
fired 12,000 air traffic controllers when
they tried to demand better wages.

This issue, however, runs deeper than

the frontline workers. What is going

on between the BC Liberals and the BC
Teacher’s Federation has moved beyond
negotiating pay for adults, but effecting the
life of most BC youth between kindergarten
and grade 12. Either the Liberals really

believe they know what is right for the
next generation, or they are so blinded
by their ideology that they’re fighting
labour for the sake of fighting labour.

So, let’s dismantle what has happened.
In 2002, now Premier (then Education
Minister) Christy Clark destroyed the
contract that had been negotiated
between teachers and the government.
The majority Liberal government passed

Bill-28, which was seen as unconstitutional.

A decade later, the Liberals tried to
pass another bill, Bill-22, which Justice
Susan Griffin ruled against, as it was
essentially the exact same thing.

Griffin ruled that the Liberals’ “strategy
was to put such pressure on the union
that it would provoke a strike... The

government representatives thought this
would give government the opportunity
to gain political support for imposing
legislation on the union.” In other

words, the Liberals could force a strike
because they thought it would help

them politically, putting students in

the middle of their political games.

Now there is a vacuum. There is no
contract because the Liberals are now
appealing the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Their identical bills have twice been
seen as unconstitutional, and now
they are once again appealing it.

For schools to be back in session, the
government has to put some money in

a pot to fund classes until the appeal is
done, or to negotiate a contract with pre-

2002 class sizes and the pay increase that
the teachers are currently demanding.

A research paper from Statistics Canada
shows that BC teachers are the worst
paid per student out of any province

or territory in Canada, as of 2011. The
BCTF are currently asking for an 8%

pay increase over 5 years, which is
broken down to 3.5% the first year, and
1.5% the next four years after that.

On September 10, over 30,000 teachers
voted 99.4% towards binding arbitration.
BCTF is ready to agree to whatever a

3rd party mediator decides upon for a
settlement to reopen schools. Clark and the
Liberals just have to allow this to happen.
Will they allow the students of British
Columbia to continue their education, or
will they force the strike to be continued?