British Columbia Teachers' Strike

To most people, Alice Cooper's song “School's Out”, in which school is “out forever” during summer break, was mere hyperbole. The BC Teachers' Federation, however, may have taken Cooper's metaphorical lyrics a bit too seriously as they delayed the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year by over two weeks due to a labor dispute. Locked in a standoff with the BC government, who refused to waver from their position and rejected the proposal of arbitration, Cooper's 1972 hit nearly became a reality for BC students.

The BCTF has long had a difficult relationship with their employers, the BC Public Schools Employer Association. The BCPSEA is the group which is tasked with negotiating with the BCTF on behalf of the BC government. The reason as to why they needed to create an entire agency for that is unknown, as is why it needed an unreasonably long name when they could have been called, say, the BC Teacher Employers. Their initials don't even spell out a relevant word like other government acronyms do.

The trouble started in 2002, when then-education minister Christy Clark stripped the union's right to bargain class sizes and composition. “Composition” is the number of special needs or IEP students in a class. Larger class sizes and more of these students in a class make a teacher's job more challenging, so these factors are as important to negotiate as wages. 

Near the tail-end of the 2013-2014 school year, BC teachers began job action. They refused to issue report cards or supervise students during break, causing recess to be cancelled at certain elementary schools. It eventually escalated to a rotating strike, with teachers in various districts striking on different days of each week. The BCTF then climaxed to a full scale strike, prematurely ending the school year by two weeks and cancelling final exams and summer school.

In addition to increased wages, teachers wanted the ability to bargain class size and composition returned to them. The Supreme Court ruled earlier that removing these rights was unconstitutional, but the government has never let something as petty as, oh, the Constitution get in their way. They're not the only one who's ignored the Supreme Court's rulings though. In 2005, teachers went on strike after the Labor Relations Board denied them permission and ignored a court order to return. The Supreme Court may as well just be a localized version of Judge Judy for all anyone listens to them.

The BCTF has played this card heavily when accused of compromising the education of BC students for their own gain. They downplayed the ask for more money and argued they were striking for students, who would benefit from smaller classes and improved funding. The BC government responded that the teachers' demands were impossible to meet, as they would cost millions of dollars that the province doesn't have.

In an effort to begin of the 2014-2015 school year on time, mediator Vince Ready was summoned to assist the BCTF and government in reaching an agreement. Vince proclaimed that the two parties were so far apart, there was no chance of the school year starting on time. He then walked out of the bargaining room, since apparently there was no hope of them reaching an agreement ever. It's not known exactly what he does, since a mediator's job is to bring two parties together, and if the BCTF and government were already close together they wouldn't need a mediator.

The BC government upped the stakes when they announced a subsidy in which they would pay $40 to parents of children under 12 each day the strike continued past September 2. This money would come from the funds which otherwise would have been paid to teachers. Since the strike continued for over two weeks, parents with one child under 13 have earned over $400. Some parents were still dissatisfied though, either because their children were over 13 or because they don't like money.

I guess the strike went on longer than we expected.

Tensions rose each day students stayed home past the scheduled start of the 2014-2015 school year. At the beginning of September, picketing teachers in Maple Ridge claimed to have been sent two boxes of urine soaked donuts. The donuts were Timbits, which the teachers believed to be emitting a foul odor. Maple Ridge police did not detect any signs of tampering, so it's implied the teachers were full of it.

Later, a Maple Ridge restaurant which catered one of Christy Clark's events subsequently had its window smashed. There is no evidence which indicates the vandalism was performed by BCTF supporters (the glass was merely broken, no brick was thrown with a note attached), but many have jumped to the conclusion due to the coincidental timing. Some even accuse the government themselves of smashing the window with the intention of making it appear BCTF supporters did it. A Facebook commenter wrote that the damage was caused by an altercation between three drunk individuals and had no relation to the strike.

"I live across the street and it was three drunk idiots driving wasted down the street. They stopped and got out and started fighting with each other and one of the bone heads decided to kick [the restaurant's] door in."

If this is true, it would hardly be the first time a drunk person has broken something. The restaurant stated that they did not know Christy Clark was attending the event when hired, but they still would have been happy to serve her had they known. After all, they are a restaurant, and restaurants are in the business of providing food to people with money.

BC students themselves decided to protest the strike in various ways. Instead of simply enjoying the three month summer break, they organized walk-outs and demonstrations. While the question of whether protesting is actually effective has long been moot, one would expect students would have to be crazy to go to the effort of complaining about extra time off from school. The Province newspaper snuck this caption alongside a photo of picketing Richmond students.

 

While this was obviously a joke which was meant to be removed before printing, it is an accurate description of what we're all thinking. One wishes political correctness had not run as rampant as it has in our society so that we could see more of this.

Near the offset of the strike, a Surrey teacher created a parody of Iggy Azalea's song "Fancy" entitled "Fed Up", with lyrics modified to admonish Christy Clark and the actions of the government. Christy Clark's son, Hamish, attends a private school, avoiding any impact the strike may have had on him. Last week, a falsified screen shot of a tweet from Christy Clark circulated, reading

“Packing my son's lunch for school! How about the rest of you? Lol! #ConsiderPrivateSchools”

Clark's office quickly claimed the tweet to be false, and surely that's true. Christy Clark wouldn't pack her son's lunch, that's what nannies are for.

Maybe they should add "How to use the Print Screen button" to the curriculum.

Private school enrollment has, in fact, risen 4.9% over the course of the strike. It's a bit difficult to understand a parent's mentality behind choosing to send children to a private school due to a strike occurring. Although it is understandable that parents would want to minimize the amount of lost school days, which totaled over a month (including the two weeks in June), private school tuition can cost between $9,000 to $12,000+ a year.

While this might be justified if school was “out forever” like in Alice Cooper's song, they are faced with a dilemma now that an agreement has been reached. Do the parents happily keep their children in private school for the rest of the year (or more), or do they have second thoughts about paying up to $12,000+ that they didn't have to?

The primary reported reason parents are enrolling their children in private school is not as a quick fix to the strike, however. Faith in the public education system is dwindling as parents realize that a feud between two groups can leave students out of class for a month (including the strike time both before and after summer break).

It was later revealed that despite giving up, Vince was helping the two parties anyway. On September 16, he announced that the groups reached an agreement. This led to the hashtag #VinceReadyIsGod to trend on Twitter, and a screenshot of the Wikipedia article "God" with a photo of Vince was posted. The screenshot has been edited, however, since the edit history of that article does not show an edit on September 16.

One should not count their chickens before they're hatched, however. Teachers must still vote on the agreement before returning to class. Schools are projected to be open next week should teachers vote in favor of ending the strike. Should they vote against it, well, a guy can hope, can't he?