VANCOUVER -While Premier Christy Clark and her fumbling Education Minister Peter Fassbender have wasted the entire summer in trying to get the teachers to the bargaining table with stalling tactics and $40 a day bribes in hopes the Teachers Union will cave in and accept a watered down deal but suddenly with only a few days left for the school year to start, they are running like chickens with their heads cut off to try to broker a deal which still won’t come in time for the school to start on time next week.
Teachers say they’re hopeful a deal can be made now that Vince Ready is involved, but they’re not ready to take down their picket lines on Tuesday.
Julie Luciani told CKNW news that she has no faith in promises being made by the other side.
“Because I don’t believe the government is bargaining fairly, so if we went back, it would be very disruptive. We would probably be back for two weeks and then, we’d be out again because the government doesn’t play fair. We’ve been ready all this time. We wanted to do it at the end of the year when it would be less disruptive, but the government wasn’t playing ball.”
Other teachers say they want to be back in their classrooms on Tuesday, but not unless a tentative deal is in place.
The President of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers’ Association —Dan Graves– says they have more faith in Ready than Fassbender and there’s still hope teachers can be back in their classrooms Tuesday.
“There’s no reason we can’t be. It’s really about government for the first time in 18 months, moving off their opening position. Stop spinning their wheels, stop with the empty slogans and stop with 12 years of letting public schools fall through the cracks. It’s their work now to come to the table and help us fix this.”
But Graves says picket lines won’t come done if no tentative deal is in place by the end of the long weekend.
“Respected mediator Vince Ready has said he is prepared to come to the table to help the two sides reach a settlement, but the Liberal government continues to put up barriers to mediation,” said New Democrat education spokesperson Rob Fleming. “Let’s hope the outcome of the meeting today between the Minister of Education and the president of the BCTF finally signals a willingness to start moving forward.”
“If the Clark government removes those conditions and comes to the table for mediated bargaining, then both sides should voluntarily suspend their job actions so our kids can be in school where they belong. We have 500,000 B.C. students and their parents living with uncertainty about whether they will be going back to school as planned on Tuesday,” said Fleming.
Education Minister Peter Fassbender has said that the government would only agree to mediation on a narrow scope of issues, not including wages.
“The only way to reach a fair settlement and ensure kids are in classrooms is to get both sides back to the table as quickly as possible,” Fleming said. “Imposing arbitrary preconditions will prevent mediation and ultimately delay labour peace in our public education system.
“Once mediation has started, both sides should voluntarily agree to suspend their job action so kids can be back in classrooms where they belong while bargaining continues.”
