Bargaining 2011: Charting a new course

By Jody Polukoshko and Tara Ehrcke

Desperate for a discretionary day? You must teach in Victoria. Getting sick from mouldy teacherages? Sounds like Vancouver Island West. Still doing lunchtime supervision? Welcome to Vancouver Secondary.

After almost two decades of a broken bargaining system, teachers are preparing to chart a new course. Last year, the Annual General Meeting and the Representative Assembly decided to pursue a new bargaining strategy. Local after local spoke out about the failure of provincial bargaining to address local issues. Stale language, a broken midcontract modification process, provincial interference (in the form of both legislated contracts and the incessant interference of BCPSEA in local matters) has meant that our experience with provincial bargaining has had limited benefits for many of our members.

Each of our locals has a unique demographic profile and specific issues that need to be dealt with. Some examples are the need to address housing conditions for rural teachers, professional development funds and processes, summer school provisions, and post-and-fill language. Each of these issues is a priority for the locals that are affected, but those locals have not found the provincial bargaining model responsive to such issues. As a result, an Ad-hoc Committee on Bargaining Structures was struck and made a series of recommendations to work toward changing our model of bargaining

Three primary issues guided the committee:

1. bringing a greater number of bargaining issues back to the local table. Currently, our ability in locals to bargain many issues directly with our local employer is limited.
2. providing funding that locals may use to bargain improvements on issues that their membership determines are most important.
3. bringing class-size and composition issues back to our collective agreements, and away from legislation that does not reflect our experiences in the classroom.

Split of issues

In the past 16 years, since many of our local bargaining rights were removed by legislation, there have been both local and provincial bargaining tables, often at the same time, but the local tables were severely limited by the Public Education Labour Relations Act legislation in 1994. The split of issues that are allowed to be discussed at each table was negotiated at that time by the BCPSEA (the provincial bargaining agent for all school districts) and the BCTF with all cost items (and several non-cost items like harassment and evaluation) being removed from locals and given to the provincial table. This agreement is no longer satisfactory, so the Federation will first seek a renegotiation of the “split of issues.” This is a high priority because the outcome will provide us with the information necessary to make good decisions as members of our locals, as well as provincially, when it comes to setting objectives.

Class size and composition

Our local collective agreements once had significant language on workload. Many locals bargained limits on class size and composition, with reductions in maximums for split grades, classes with Kindergarten in them, and for numbers of students with special needs. Many locals had specific language around inclusion, and ratios for specialist teachers. In 2002, that language, which was hard-fought and won, was stripped unilaterally from our collective agreements through legislation introduced by the provincial Liberal government. A few years later, Bill 33 arrived, which does not address the needs of teachers or students in any meaningful way, and does little to address violations of this law. Bill 33 is, however, a great example of what happens when non-educators determine what is best for education! Years later, we are still addressing this law’s inadequacy through the grievance process.

We believe that it is our right to bargain workload. The new bargaining structure seeks as a priority, the ability to bring class size and composition back to the bargaining table. It empowers the BCTF full-time table officers to meet with government to seek this improvement. Class size and composition is an issue that is of the utmost importance to our members and to our students, and is placed at the start of our negotiation process.

Funding and support

The third component of this new model is to bargain an “envelope” of money to be fairly distributed among BC locals. This funding envelope will provide resources for districts and locals to negotiate monetary items. It will support any improvements we negotiate based on our locals’ unique needs.

On the ground

What will this mean for teachers? Many of us have never lived through local negotiating. Many of us don’t remember the class-size and composition language that used to be part of our collective agreement. Over the last two decades, our engagement with the bargaining process has diminished as there were fewer and fewer opportunities for teachers to have an effect on improving our rights.

Much of the hard work will be done before our local or provincial tables even open—the negotiations that the BCTF is already engaged in with government and BCPSEA to change the structures will require a united membership. Member involvement will be of the utmost importance in this upcoming year. In the past, when bargaining, we have taken action, rallied, raised public support, and we have worked together to advance objectives. This time, the need for solidarity will be of equal importance, but will also need to be mobilized in response to changing the way we bargain.

Opportunities for input

As this is a new approach, it will require new processes. As the BCTF Executive Committee seeks changes to the way we bargain, and to reverse some of the profoundly destructive legislation that has limited our bargaining rights, it is essential that we, as members, keep informed about progress. In May and June, and in the early fall, there will be activity in your local as you set your objectives, appoint your bargaining teams, and make budgetary decisions to support bargaining in your local. Your local would be doing these things regardless of what bargaining structure we have. Assessing members’ needs and priorities, as well as their commitment to attain those needs and priorities, is all part of what we do in locals—whether those needs and priorities end up being dealt with at the provincial or the local table.

Provincially, your locally elected officers as well as your local representatives to the BCTF will be participating in several meetings in the next year. These include the Bargaining Conference in October 2010, bargaining training in November, and one or more special representative assemblies to update and discuss progress at each table, and to make decisions based on that progress. Bargaining preparation will also be a focus of the upcoming Summer Conference.

The new structure itself is adaptive and responsive—timelines are longer, there are more opportunities for member feedback, and it is an attempt to build provincial support for local bargaining without simultaneously fettering local autonomy. Our collective agreements are unique and reflect the unique characteristics of our locals. However, we remain a provincial body that always seeks to support and advance the needs of public education. We believe that this new structure respects both of these roles of teachers, and will strengthen our membership in new ways.

Jody Polukoshko is vice-president and grievance officer, VESTA and Tara Ehrcke is contract chair, Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association.

AGM bargaining survey responses

Nicole Davie, Cariboo Chilcotin:

What would you like to achieve in the next round of bargaining?

• Improved teaching and learning conditions
• Increased pay and benefits Most important issues for you?
• pay increaseóteaching is a stressful job that is below scale in BC when compared to other provinces and professions
• better learning conditionsóI teach art and although my school is very supportive of the program, we still have too many students in a windowless room with not enough money to give a holistic, rich experience. Our government needs to FUND education properly.

Robb Stevenson, Boundary:

What would you like to achieve in the next round of bargaining?

The next round of bargaining must achieve a restoration of stripped class-size and composition language, development of a comprehensive benefits package, cost of living wage increases, and pressure the employer to take action on pertinent TTOC issues.

Most important issues for you?

The collective agreement is a powerful tool in our fight against the privatization of public education by the BC Liberals. We must demand complete and full funding restoration of education to guarantee improvements in the learning conditions of our students, the working conditions of our teachers, and support for our new teachers and TTOCs.

Natasha Tattersall, Burnaby:

What would you like to achieve in the next round of bargaining?

1. return to local bargaining
2. improved benefits
3. improved class size and composition
4. lower counsellor/student ratios
5. defined teacher/student ratios for non-enrolling teachers.

Most important issues for you?

1. return to local bargaining
2. improved class size and composition
3. improved benefits.