The teachers' union in British Columbia has asked the province's Labour Relations Board to fire the government-appointed mediator hired to resolve a contract dispute that has disrupted the entire school year so far.

Union president Susan Lambert said Thursday that Charles Jago is unqualified and biased because he helped draft the government's back-to-work legislation passed last month.

But Education Minister George Abbott said he has full confidence in Jago as the right person for the job.

"Unfortunately, while they initially asked for a mediator to be appointed, the (BC Teachers' Federation) now seems intent on sidelining the mediation process by asking the Labour Relations Board to have Dr. Jago's appointment rescinded," he said in a statement.

Lambert said the union met with Jago last week and Jago acknowledged he helped draft Bill 22, which requires the union to work with a mediator.

She also said Jago wrote a report for the Liberals in 2006 on the public education system and that his conclusions, including his position on teachers' seniority rights, match the objectives of the B.C. Public School Employers' Association, the government's bargaining agent.

Lambert said Jago had already been asked to take on the mediation job in early February, before the government asked the union, on March 17, for names of possible mediators who could wade through a myriad of contract issues.

"It's perplexing to know that the mediator had already been chosen prior to the request to us for names," Lambert told a news conference.

"Even worse, Dr. Jago told us that he had been given access to the draft legislation and had been involved in wordsmithing it," she said, adding he changed some "musts" and "shoulds."

Lambert couldn't say if Jago actually had anything to do with the legislation beyond that.

"To tell you the truth, I was so surprised when he told us this that I didn't ask those kinds of questions," she said.

"Any mediator in any process must be independent of both parties. To have a mediator involved in the drafting of the legislation, I think, is patently not independent of the process."

Lambert said the union has also determined Jago has no experience as a labour mediator and only minor experience in labour relations, but only as a management representative.

On Monday, and again on Wednesday, the union asked Jago to withdraw from his position but he declined, Lambert said.

In a letter to the union on Tuesday, Jago said he is impartial in his job as mediator.

"From the outset, I have been clear that I will be fair and balanced in mediating this dispute. I have committed to both you and the government that I will exercise my independence as mediator pursuant to the terms of Bill 22."

Lambert said Jago's appointment would undermine confidence in a process that teachers already view as being skewed against them.

"We are very saddened that we have to take this step," she said of the union's efforts to have Jago's appointment quashed.

"This is very serious," she said. "This is our round of bargaining and I think there's a cavalier aspect to government's treatment of teachers that I think is so unfortunate."

Teachers began limited job action, such as refusing to fill out report cards, on the first day of school last September.

In March, they staged a three-day walkout before the government tabled legislation to get them back to work.

Teachers wanted a 15-per-cent wage hike but the government refused to budge from its so-called net-zero mandate, which prohibits increases for all public-sector unions.

A March 28 news release announcing Jago's appointment said he is the former president of the University of Northern B.C. and has held academic appointments in Canadian universities for more than 40 years.