Despite criticism from the provinces Education Minister the Burnaby Teachers Association is standing behind an email sent to their members.
President Richard Storch resfused to categorize the email as threatening instead he called it an information piece on extra-curricular activity.
He says “Our approach as a union is not to threaten our own members as the BTA we sent out that email because the purpose of the email was to inform members to clarify with our members what they can and cannot do based on the membership vote that we had.”
Storch says in light of the BCTF job action vote their teachers wanted to know what could and couldn’t be done.
He says as part of job action extra-curricular activity is banned.
And if teachers choose to go ahead anyway ..”They need to be aware that isn’t something that is going to be okay nor is it something that the BTA, the Burnaby Teachers Association, can say to them yes it is okay go ahead and do it because then we are advising contrary to the vote we just had so we sent out the email as an information piece.”
However what still isn’t clear is what union punishment might be levied against teachers who don’t comply.
Storch says teachers tried very hard to avoid any affect of job action on students.
Is the email threatening or informative? Decide for yourself the full text of the email from the BTA is below.
Dear colleagues,
The BTA EC is sending you this email to clarify what the BTA/BCTF’s expectations are under our ban on extra curricular and voluntary activities, as decided by the entire membership in our recent member vote.
Our actions need be guided by the following advice:
Extra-curricular/voluntary activities are those activities that occur and/or are organized by members outside of instructional hours.
The AGM Action Plan, for the period April-June 2012, calls on members to “refrain from all extra-curricular/voluntary activities”.
During this period extra-curricular/voluntary activities can continue, but teachers will not be involved. Administrators, parents and community volunteers can provide the necessary planning, sponsorship, paperwork and supervision required for the activities to continue. The message is that teachers are not preventing these activities from taking place; we are withdrawing our participation as they are voluntary/extra-curricular activities.
Generally speaking, any activity that involves teachers working with students outside of instructional hours is an extracurricular/voluntary activity. These include:
Trips and camps
Activities such as these which occur or are organized outside of instructional time are extra-curricular/voluntary.
Clubs, sports, performance events
Any of these activities that are organized or that take place outside of instructional hours are extra-curricular/voluntary.
Graduation ceremonies
Graduation ceremonies that are organized or that occur outside of instructional hours are extra-curricular/voluntary. Members will not organize or supervise such activities outside of instructional hours.
Based on these guidelines, previous dispensations granted by the BTA EC have now been rescinded. No new dispensations will be considered.
We understand the difficulties that this ban will present to you and or your students. We would like to emphasize that the events and activities are able to take place, but not with teacher participation. The BCTF and BTA wish to remind all members of BCTF Members’ Guide policy 44.2, which allows for sanctions against members who act in opposition to collective action, such as our recent members’ vote decided in favour of.
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