B.C. Premier Christy Clark has finally waded into the long-standing labour dispute between her government and more than 40,000 out-of-work teachers.
Speaking to a room full of media desperate to hear Clark's perspective after weeks of keeping a low profile, the premier hammered home the government’s stance that the BC Teachers’ Federation alone has the power to end the strike.
“Parents have had this experience many times over the last 30 years, where discussions have ended at the table; strikes, disputes, orders back to work, and then inevitably, strikes again,” Clark said. “All of that can only be settled if we’re at the bargaining table. That’s where I believe this impasse must be resolved.”
Clark urged the teachers’ union to suspend the strike immediately to allow kids to return to school, and called on the BCTF to return to the table to “bargain seriously.”
She also maintained her government does not want to enact back-to-work legislation to end the strike, and would rather see divisive issues like class size and composition settled at the bargaining table. Clark also said the government has put $375-million on the table to go toward class composition.
“We want to be talking about classroom composition at the table. That is the single most important issue for me, as premier,” she said. “We have to get more qualified adults…in the classrooms to support children with special needs. The only way we can start doing that is if the teachers’ union can get into a reasonable settlement so we can put these wage issues aside.”
Two hours after Clark spoke, B.C. Teachers' Federation president Jim Iker accused the government of going to great lengths to make it appear the gap between the sides was a massive gulf and vowed strikers would march the lines until they got movement from the government.
He said Clark was "mistaken" in her portrayal of the union's demands, noting several items had already been taken off the table, and described the government's $375 million interim offer for dealing with special needs in the classroom as "status quo" because it would only be used to hire teachers previously laid off due to cuts.
He reiterated the union's proposal for two new multimillion dollar funds to hire more teachers and deal with grievances as the only way to rectify the problem, while saying the union was still willing to bargain on the exact amounts.
"Is fixing a system that's been underfunded for 12 years expensive? Yes, of course it is," he told reporters at a news conference, before adding his own jabs. "But the government needs to rethink its priorities and put kids first. If they can build a roof on BC Place for half-a-billion dollars or give a private power company in California $750 million, we can afford to invest in our children."
Iker provided his own list of the roadblocks to getting a settlement: that government has been unwilling to engage in bargaining talks, that its negotiators have offered no counter-proposals in spite of the union's concessions and the insistence on keeping a clause in the contract that the union believes negates its bargaining rights.
He said the strike could end if the B.C. Public School Employers' Association, the government's bargaining arm, dropped "E80," a clause that he describes as overriding provisions related to class size and composition, a right the union already established in two B.C. court decisions.
The union frequently cites the B.C. Supreme Court decisions, now on appeal by the government, that ruled its rights to negotiate those issues were illegally removed by government legislation in 2002.
Public school was supposed to start Tuesday, but some experts say it could be weeks before classes resume.
Teachers and their supporters rallied outside of Clark's MLA office in West Kelowna on Wednesday afternoon.
More than half a million B.C. schoolchildren have been affected by the strike and there appears to be no resolution in sight with teachers and the government now negotiating through the media while actual talks have stalled.
With files from The Canadian Press
