The BC teachers are still on strike.Please show up at your school at 9am to 915 on Tuesday with your kids and tell the government to bargain fairly!
I have followed the debates and now am convinced that the Liberal government did not really want to solve the strike at all. Although the issue seems to be the Supreme Court decisions that declared the BC Laws that restricted bargaining on class size and composition to be unconstitutional (and a past lawyer, I can tell you that by taking out these rights, you are gutting teachers’ power) this this is not the REAL issue. The issue is our whole system of labour negotiation where the parties bully each other to death. And the most powerful one wins (usually the government, duh!). And in doing so they destroy all the relationships of parents, students, teachers, principals unions, politicians and governments. If the Liberal government really wants to improve or dismantle the whole K-12 public education system, do it transparently. Not by paying parents $40 bucks and not by one thousand knife cuts. This is a disgusting abuse of labour law, played out in its truest form! I urge sensible and heart-based lawyers to create a better system that honours not just the two fighting parties but all the impacted people (like all of us!) over the long term. See you on Tuesday for the first step!