The BC Teachers' Federation has reached a tentative agreement with the employer, the BC Public School Employers' Association.
Education Minister George Abbott has released the following statement:
"We are pleased that mediation has resulted in a tentative Memorandum of Settlement between the British Columbia Public School Employers' Associationand the British Columbia Teachers' Federation.
Under Dr. Charles Jago's guidance, the parties worked extremely hard and made progress on many important issues.
The term of the agreement runs until June 30, 2013, sets out improved
language to manage leave provisions, and is consistent with government's net
zero mandate.
In addition, the parties agreed to further discuss and seek
mutually agreeable improvements on key policy issues to provide students
with the best education possible.
In the days ahead, BCPSEA and the BCTF will communicate further information
to their members about the agreement and next steps with respect to
ratification.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Jago for the tireless
commitment, effort and energy he brought to the mediation process. His
success in this endeavour is consistent with the many successes he has
achieved in his distinguished career."
The BC Teachers' Federation has released the following statement:
This evening, representatives of the BC Teachers’ Federation signed an agreement-in-committee with government’s bargaining agent, the BC Public School Employers’ Association. The BCTF Executive Committee is recommending ratification.
“After a long and difficult round of negotiations, we were compelled into this process under threat of huge fines and further punitive legislation,” said BCTF President Susan Lambert.
“We have been able to achieve some modest improvements but, above all, we succeeded in getting government take its concession demands off the table,” Lambert said, adding that no other public sector union was subject to such an attack on due process and fair treatment.
“We’ve concluded this agreement in order to prevent government from imposing a contract that would further erode teachers’ hard-won rights and do more harm to students’ learning conditions,” Lambert said.
The agreement leaves important matters unresolved. The agreement provides for no improvements to class size and composition. Despite the BC Supreme Court ruling that Bills 27 and 28 are unconstitutional and invalid, government refused to redress this legislation, which stripped teachers’ collective agreements, restricted their bargaining rights, and eliminated provisions for class size and composition, as well as staffing ratios for specialist teachers who served students with special needs.
Lambert emphasized that BC teachers will never give up advocating strongly for the funding, resources, and conditions that will enable them to meet the needs of all students.
The agreement does nothing to address the wide gap between BC teachers’ salaries and those in other regions of the country. BC teachers had wage freezes, which are, in fact, wage cuts due to inflation, imposed in 2004–05 and 2005–06, and now again for 2011–12 and 2012–13.
Going into this round of negotiations we were the lowest-paid teachers in Western Canada and also lagged behind Ontario. Now we will fall even further behind, despite living in the province with the highest cost of living in the country,” Lambert said.
“We are required to open negotiations again in just eight months, and we will once again be looking for fair treatment at the bargaining table and long awaited improvements for our members and our students,” Lambert said.
Teachers across the province will cast their ballots between June 27–29, 2012, with results of the ratification vote to be announced in the evening of June 29, the last day of the 2011–12 school year.
About The Reporter
