B.C. teachers face lockout on Monday
NEWS — B.C. teachers will face lockout action Monday, the day they plan to start rotating strikes, but it won’t include closure of schools.
B.C. Public Service Employers Association public administrator Michael Marchbank delivered the news to B.C. Teachers Federation president Jim Iker via a letter Wednesday.
It follows on the heels of a BCTF decision Tuesday to begin rotating strikes throughout the province next week.
The lockout will result in suspension of some duties and a reduction in hours of work. Based on the teachers’ current limited job action, their pay will be cut by five per cent, said Marchbank.
“This reduction is, in part, a reflection of work not performed by members of the bargaining unit in accordance with the union’s ‘stage 1’ strike,” wrote Marchbank.
The stage 1 job action has included refusal to take part in meetings with administrators and to carry out out-of-class supervision.
If the union carries through with rotating strikes, the pay cut will double.
Under the lockout, teachers are directed not to work during recess or lunch hours, or to arrive at school more than 45 minutes early or stay more than 45 minutes late.
If a new contract isn’t reached by June 25, a full lockout will be applied to secondary-school teachers. Two days later, it will expand to elementary teachers.
“It will be clear from our letter that BCPSEA’s action to reduce wages is based on the principle of reduced pay for reduced work,” Marchbank wrote.
The full text of the letter is on the association’s website.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
What if: “OK children (teachers & government). This bickering you got into during recess (spring break and long weekends) will stop, and we will go back to class with no interference with each other until lunch time (summer break) when you will discuss this with no lunch (income) until you agree to co-operate for the best interests of all.”
LikeLike
It is abundantly clear that the time for a BC Royal Commission into public education is long overdue, the last one having taken place well over twenty years ago. Substantive changes, both systemic and operational, are desperately needed, and our current government has an ignorant vested interest in avoiding them.
One of the greatest needs is for a government to have the courage to eliminate the so-called “right to strike” and replace it with a genuinely neutral and trustworthy dispute resolution system . The current (now nearly thirty years old) conflict was a deliberate and clumsy creation of the Liberals’ fore-runner, Social Credit, in its then attempt to destroy the BCTF.
For the sake of our kids, our parents, our history, our future, Premier Clark, do what is wise and needed, not what is spiteful and petty!
LikeLike