TEACHERS across the North Shore will huddle to plan their next steps in a "Day of Action" Monday after Education Minister George Abbott announced the province will legislate an end to their year-long labour dispute.
Abbott made the declaration Thursday.
Immediate response from teachers was shock and disappointment at the news, said Rob Millard, president of the 500-member West Vancouver Teachers Association.
"There will be some who will be angry," he said. "If you were a really cynical person, you would suppose this was the plan all along," he added. "A lot of teachers feel that."
Monday's discussions won't have an impact on local classrooms, where teachers will be working as usual.
They are expected to stage protests with posters and signs after school hours. In the wake of Abbott's announcement, the president of the B.C. Teachers Federation, Susan Lambert, called on the province to ask public school employers to
go to mediation, or even binding arbitration, before bringing in a law to end the dispute.
Speaking at a press conference, Lambert called the threat of legislation a "bludgeon" that the government was wielding over teachers, but sidestepped speculation about a wildcat strike if legislators pass the law in the next week.
"We're open to creative ways to resolve this dispute," she said.
"What is the haste? Why is this minister so desperate to pass legislation?"
But at his own news conference earlier in the day, Abbott said the dispute has gone on long enough.
"It is unacceptable that this situation continue," he said, adding that students have been paying the price.
A report by government appointed fact finder Trevor Hughes - an assistant deputy minister of industrial relations - concluded it is unlikely the teachers and their employers will be able to reach a deal through negotiations.
The province's mandate of a "net zero" increase to wages and the teachers' demand of a 15 per cent increase over three years are too far apart to bridge, Hughes wrote. The two sides could not even agree on the price tag of that difference - with teachers putting it at $565 million over three years and the public school employers putting it at $2 billion.
Abbott said Thursday it would be inappropriate to ask a mediator to bridge that gap.
He said the government would prepare legislation over the weekend to be introduced as early as next week. An enforced settlement would not provide any wage increase to teachers, he said, adding most public sector unions that have settled their contracts have received a similar deal.
Daniel Storms, president of the 1,100-member North Vancouver Teachers Association, said Thursday it's premature of the government to legislate an end to the dispute before going through steps like mediation.
He said he won't know how teachers will react to that until they see what kind of deal the government brings in.
Storms said teachers are worried about issues besides wages, including having other provisions stripped out of their contracts.
Hughes noted in his report that 75 per cent of provincial public sector employees have negotiated deals without wage increases since the government's "net-zero" mandate came into effect in 2009. Most of those contracts have what's known as a "me too" clause, Hughes noted, which calls for the contracts to be re-opened if any other public sector union negotiates a better deal.
