The B.C. Liberal government has made a bold move in education bargaining toward its mandate to secure a 10-year agreement with the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF).
Trustees will now have a diminished, indirect role in negotiations after the recent appointment of Michael Marchbank as public administrator for the B.C Public School Employers Association (BCPSEA).
Cariboo Chilcotin Teachers’ Association (CCTA) president Murray Helmer, who recently took over reigns, says he believes the current negotiations were causing government “distress” because they didn’t help pursue its 10-year deal plan.
“I think the government wasn’t overly pleased that BCPSEA and the BCTF were making progress without them involved.
“So, I assume this move is meant to sort of dismantle BCPSEA and put the current negotiations on hold.”
Marchbank, chief executive officer of the Health Employers’ Association of B.C., immediately assumed all responsibilities of the BCPSEA board of directors at the end of July.
Education Minister Peter Fassbender says it is a temporary move until such time as the necessary legislation is implemented to restructure the bargaining process, once the legislature is back in session. That restructuring will give government a direct role in negotiating agreements with the BCTF.
Now, trustees will move to the “important” – but advisory – role, the minister adds, as the appointment of a public administrator ends their legal position on the BCPSEA board of directors.
The provincial government is undertaking this change as a method to advance its plans to restructure the kindergarten-Grade 12 bargaining process and its mandate to secure a long-term deal with the BCTF when bargaining resumes in September, he notes.
Fassbender adds the government will be working with the B.C. School Trustees Association (BCSTA) to “fully canvass school boards” on the reforms to BCPSEA’s role.
However, Helmer says the trustees are the single elected group involved, who have now been “unilaterally removed” from the process.
“I worry that, if government can do that in negotiations, maybe they will just eliminate trustees from future elected positions and assume all running of school districts, perhaps.”
A two-year contract extension and government-imposed wage freeze for teachers expired at the end of June.
Helmer says he would like to see all bargaining already underway come to some kind of a conclusion, hopefully with successful negotiations.
“Then, if the whole process has to be changed, do that after the fact rather than in the middle of an ongoing negotiation process.”
Helmer says he’ll know more on how the BCTF might respond to this latest intervention to the bargaining process once he meets with other union representatives at a BCTF conference later this month in Kamloops.
Meanwhile, school support staff in the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) are due to resume contract negotiations this month, after talks broke down last spring when CUPE determined BCPSEA had no mandate from government to reach a settlement.
The education assistants, clerical staff, trades, custodians, bus drivers and other school workers represented by CUPE have had no wage increase for more than four years, and virtually all of the 57 CUPE locals have achieved a strike mandate.
To download Fassbender’s July 31 open letter to trustees and other stakeholders notifying them of the changes, go online to www.newsroom.gov.bc.ca/downloads/Open_Letter_to_Stakeholders_31_July_2013.pdf.
