The year-long British Columbia teachers' dispute came to a head Tuesday when their union won the right to leave their jobs for three days, one day a week afterwards, and the government introduced legislation imposing a cooling-off period in hopes of averting any walkout.
Hours after the Labour Relations Board laid out the rules for a legal strike by teachers, Education Minister George Abbott stood in the legislature to announce a bill that would suspend all strike and lockout activities.
He also appointed a mediator to develop a set of non-binding recommendations by the end of the school year.
The legislation will leave little time for the teachers to exercise their newly won right to strike.
Although the bill must be debated in the legislature, the Labour Relations Board requires teachers to give parents two days' notice before a walkout.
Abbott expects the bill to be passed by sometime next week.
He said Bill 22, the Education Improvement Act, extends the current expired contract to allow the mediator to work with all sides to reach a new deal that still falls within the government's net-zero wage mandate.
He said if no solution is found by the time school resumes in the fall, the government will impose a contract.
"I do not want to see students have to go through what they've experienced this year again," Abbott said. "We did not come to this point to have a strike in September, I can assure you."
Teachers are demanding a 15-per-cent wage increase as well as improved benefits, while the province has been sticking to its mandate of negotiating public sector contracts that have no added costs.
Since September, teachers have been refusing to perform administrative duties, including filling out report cards.
The board said in its ruling that teachers must perform at least those same, reduced duties while they are in the classroom.
The year-long contract dispute ramped up last week when the government announced it would prepare back-to-work legislation after a fact finder concluded the teachers' union and the BC Public School Employers' Association were too far apart to hope for a negotiated settlement.
Susan Lambert, president of the BC Teachers' Federation, said teachers don't want to take the strike option.
"Teachers would prefer to be engaging in a meaningful mediation process to resolve this dispute rather than escalating it," Lambert said in a news release just after the board's decision was released.
"But given the government's ongoing refusal to meet us halfway, we're compelled to try to increase the pressure on both our employer and the government."
That includes urging the government to bring in an experienced mediator, she said.
Abbott said the government has yet to appoint a mediator, but is seeking a person "who combines some skill and understanding in the area of education with some demonstrated skills around mediation and I suppose, given the challenge, an ability to walk on water."
The legislation includes attempts to resolve long-standing areas of dispute between teachers and the government with regards to class size and class composition and their relation to collective bargaining.
Abbott said Bill 22 encompasses the government's response to last year's B.C. Supreme Court decision on two other bills.
They required the government to consult and respond to a ruling that the province was not entitled to remove from bargaining teachers' rights to negotiate class sizes and composition.
The proposed law returns class size, composition and related matters to bargaining.
Abbott said the proposed law includes class size maximums of 22 students for kindergarten; 24 students in Grades 1 to 3; and 30 students in Grades 4 to 12. Teachers will be eligible for enhanced compensation to take on classes with more than 30 students.
Abbott also said the proposed legislation implements a $165-million Learning Improvement Fund to help schools address special needs students. The money is to be spread over three years.
The BCTF has said the $165 million is nowhere near enough money.
The union applied on Monday night for permission to allow teachers to pull their services for four days a week over the course of two weeks.
The employer argued teachers should only be authorized to stage a single-day walkout over the same period, while returning to normal duties the rest of the time.
Teachers don't have the green light to picket or block access to schools, and cannot escalate the job action in any other way.
The whole situation will be reviewed again on a weekly basis starting March 12. At that time the board order may be changed, depending on the circumstances.
