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A modest proposal to end the teachers’ dispute
Perceptions by Gerry Warner
As teachers and politicians once again disrupt the education of more than 500,000 students in B.C. it behooves all of us to ask how did we ever get into this destructive mess?
As a former teacher myself, I can’t offer any easy answers, but I think I can offer a perspective that might explain things.
If you clear away the cheap rhetoric on both sides as they try to demonize each other, one thing becomes fundamentally clear – there’s only one true ‘victim’ in this decades-old battle and that of course is the students.
No matter how the BCTF tries to spin the message, everything they do in their crusade to improve their lot is at the expense of our children who are caught in the middle between a militant, ideological union and a heavy-handed government, which doesn’t know how to respond. In a union model, it can be no other way because it’s based on both sides ratcheting up the pressure until one side cries uncle and an agreement is hammered out. And who bears the brunt of this pressure? It’s the province’s half-a-million children, the forgotten victims of this dysfunctional system that we call “education” in B.C.
Such a system usually works in industry, but not without pain on both sides. But is it fair to subject children to this? Surely not though the BCTF rationalizes it by saying “learning conditions” will improve when class sizes are reduced and more support provided for students with special needs. There’s some truth to this, but it’s also true that there will be more money in teachers’ pockets even though they’re already among the best paid public servants in the province. Meanwhile, the government keeps poking the teachers in the eye with a hot stick by threatening to dock their pay as if that was a solution. As I said earlier, a dysfunctional system with both sides to blame.
And what does the world think of B.C. with educational warfare breaking out every time a contract expires? Since gaining collective bargaining rights in 1987, the BCTF has only reached an agreement once without outside intervention and that was in 2006 when the government gave teachers a hefty signing bonus of $3,700 each.
At the same time, the courts have twice ruled in favour of the BCTF saying the government negotiated unfairly. It’s an endless merry-go-round and once again these two intransigent parties are forcing all of us to ride it.
Surely this must end before the public school system goes down like the Titanic with teachers and government negotiators scratching each other’s eyes out on the deck. Parents are losing faith in B.C.’s public school system with almost 12 per cent of the province’s 550,000 students no longer enrolled in public schools and attending various private and religious schools or being home-schooled.
In effect, the message parents are giving to politicians and teachers is a plague on both your houses. They’re fed up and rightly so. So what can be done?
Allow me to make a modest proposal and I think it’s the only solution to decades of educational anarchy in the province and that’s to make education in B.C. an essential service with no job action or strikes allowed and binding arbitration when an agreement can’t be reached.
Is education not essential? I don’t see how teachers could argue against that. At the same time wouldn’t it make more sense than the government trying to ram a 10-year agreement down teachers’ throats, which is still their long-term goal?
Essentially, both sides have worn out their welcome. Teachers are seeking a raise way beyond what other government workers have received and the government unsurprisingly is saying ‘no.’ But the government’s heavy-handed negotiating tactics have been twice rebuked by the courts so the net result is a zero sum game.
This impasse is hurting more than education in the province. It’s hurting our reputation abroad as a civilized place to live and prosper. And in an increasingly globalized and competitive world we can’t afford that. So in my modest opinion, I don’t mind saying I’d vote for any party or any premier with the guts to take this admittedly momentous step.
Can we afford to do anything less?
– Gerry Warner is a former teacher, a retired journalist and now a member of Cranbrook City Council. His opinions are his own.
