Then again, considering the brewing anger amongst the province's educators, maybe lemons will mark the next escalation of the ongoing debate between the MLA and the PRDTA.
Since the return to school of September, the local teachers have made sporadic appearances in front of the MLA's Ocean Centre offices to deliver their message on the state of negotiations; a process which has also played out through the exchange of letters through the local paper.
The prospect of more storefront stops and more mail for the weekly paper's newsroom would seem likely in the short term, that after the rejection of the recommendations from the mediator on Friday.
In a statement released by BCTF President Terri Mooring on Friday, the teachers noted a number of areas where they and the BCPSEA do not appear to be on the same page.
“The main barriers to getting a deal are long-held demands from the employer to rollback the class-size and class-composition language recently restored by the Supreme Court of Canada and a lack of funding from government to make meaningful improvements to teachers’ salaries. BC teachers have the second lowest starting salary in all of Canada and the lowest overall salary in the Western provinces, including Ontario and Alberta.
Teachers’ low wages in BC have made recruitment and retention such a problem that our province is now in a teacher shortage crisis. The result of the teacher shortage is an unprecedented number of unqualified and non-certified adults teaching in classrooms across BC. That’s unacceptable and we wouldn’t tolerate it in other professions.
The shortage has also caused significant disruptions to students with special needs. Too often, specialist teachers who work one-on-one or in small groups with students are being pulled from their work to cover classrooms with no teacher in them. There are not enough on-call teachers to cover absences and sick days. The negative consequences of the teacher shortage impact all students.”
Towards the theme of seeking to rollback the recent court victory, the BCTF President also highlighted that if successful the government's approach would lead to job losses and cuts.
“The government, through their bargaining agent BCPSEA, tabled massive concessions that would undo our entire court win on April 3, 2019. It was shocking to see this government, through their employers’ association, try to undo everything teachers had fought so long to win back. These proposed rollbacks to class size, class composition, and staffing ratios would create job losses and cuts.
It’s time for the government to confirm that their bargaining agent has abandoned their demands for unacceptable concessions once and for all. The BCNDP government’s public positions supporting teachers and public education have been at odds with the employers’ actions at the table for months. The BC cabinet needs to give the employer new marching orders and put new funding on the table to get a deal that works for teachers and students.”
The full statement, along with a timeline on the negotiations from the BCTF can be reviewed here.
For its part, the BCPSEA released the details of the mediators report which was submitted to both parties on November 1st, you can review that document here.
They also included a shorter listing, featuring the key items related to the recommendations.
Alan Chell, the Board Chair for the BCPSEA outlined the government negotiators side of the issues at the moment, observing how some of the BCTF talking points are significant barriers towards a contract resolution.
“Given the BCTF rejection, the BCPSEA Board of Directors has determined that a vote of the Board or a vote of our members is moot,. Although the mediator’s recommendations didn’t represent BCPSEA’s preferred approach, the Board believed they would provide the public school system with the necessary labour stability while we attempted to work with the BCTF over the term of the agreement to address the structural barriers that are preventing productive negotiations.
We are concerned that the BCTF continues to take an approach that will not lead to a freely negotiated collective agreement. In his report, the mediator specifically points to the barriers, including, among other matters, the BCTF refusal to negotiate within the provincial government public sector bargaining mandate, their attempts to re-negotiate the split of Provincial and Local issues as agreed by the parties, and their attempts to negotiate the size of the K-12 public education operating budget. These are significant barriers."
The entire statement from the employers organization can be reviewed here.
As the teachers did, the BCPSEA also noted that there is still the opportunity for more contract discussions to come; with the government negotiators noting that the mediator has not as of yet booked out of the ongoing round of talks.
The stalemate that is in place has made for much in the way of discussion through social media where the teacher's dispute makes for some lively debate, wth a number of contributors from the Prince Rupert area weighing in on a range of themes.
Among the themes of the social media sharing, a number of the contributions express disappointment in the position that Premier John Horgan's NDP government has taken on education and the negotiations.
Many of the themes related to the contract negotiations are being explored through the twitter pages of #bctf #bcpoli and #bced
So far, the Premier himself has not said too much about the stalled state of the teacher's discussions, though he did offer up some guidance for striking support workers in the Saanich area last week, indicating that accepting a recent contract offer was something they should consider.
As for the local themes on the North Coast, there is no indication yet what steps the PRDTA may take next to reinforce their position on the state of the talks or where they see a resolution of the issues that have led to the stalled discussions.
For a look at some of the lates notes on the BCTF/BCSPEA negotiations see our archive page.
