Sources say Clark gov’t insists on clauses insulating it from another Supreme Court loss.
By Crawford Kilian | Published 25 Aug 2014 by TheTyee.ca
The long summer stall in teacher bargaining may be due to terms the government is insisting on including in the next contract, The Tyee has learned. One proposed clause, apparently a major sticking point, appears to stem from the legal, financial and political bind the BC Liberals face after rulings against them by the B.C. Supreme Court.
While a media blackout continues, information received (not from anyone bargaining on either side) suggests that “one of the major stumbling blocks in the contract that the government wants the teachers to sign is that there is language/wording that virtually recreates all the conditions set out in Bills 27, 28 and 22.”
Bills 27 and 28, passed by the Gordon Campbell Liberal government in 2002 when Christy Clark was education minister, effectively tore up the contract teachers had been working under, and removed class size and composition from the bargaining table.
In 2011 the BC Supreme Court declared the bills unconstitutional. It gave the government one year to make amends, and in 2012 Victoria introduced Bill 22, effectively restoring what the Supreme Court had rejected.
Read more: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/08/25/Teacher-Bargaining-Jams/
Montreal Teachers 4 Change.org 
Leave a Reply