Students could return to the classroom next week if a tentative deal reached in the British Columbia teachers' strike early Tuesday morning is ratified Thursday.
On Tuesday morning, about 100 striking teachers who lined intersections along Blanshard Street from Hillside Avenue to Fort Street were blasted by horns and waves from motorists who had obviously heard the news of a tentative deal. Only three hand gestures included middle fingers, said one teacher.
The breakthrough in negotiations came on the fifth day of talks at a Richmond hotel between the union and the employers' association with the help of mediator Vince Ready.
It’s believed the tentative agreement is a six-year deal — one year retroactive — that includes wage and benefits increases comparable to other public sector deals (in the seven- to eight-per-cent range), a signing bonus and more money for the learning improvement fund, souces say. Those details have yet to be confirmed.
Ready, known for his ability to solve even the toughest labour disputes, said both sides worked hard to reach the tentative deal, but he revealed few details. Ready is headed out of town this morning for other work.
“After all these hours, I am very pleased to announce that the parties have reached a tentative agreement,” he told reporters outside the Delta Hotel.
"I’m not at liberty to release any of the details, nor are the parties. The parties are going to meet later this morning and finalize a few of the outstanding details, but generally speaking, there has been a tentative agreement initialized by the parties and that’s really all I got to say at this point.”
Speculation that the deal saw the government move on class composition and the teachers move on wages and benefits could not be confirmed.
Education Ministry spokesman Scott Sutherland said in an interview with the Times Colonist that at this point the government is not talking about the details.
“The two parties still have to sit down and go through the language before that. We won’t be saying anything about what movements were made or how it came about other than a tentative deal has been reached.”
Vic West Elementary School teacher Jackie Kosh said she is wary of the details of the tentative agreement but is hopeful that it contains improvements to class composition because for her, the strike was never about wages and benefits.
“It’s not about the wages, as the public seems to think — it’s about class size and composition,” Kosh said.
Kosh has taught in an inner-city school for eight years and says the teacher-student ratio is unworkable.
“Our special-ed has been cut; our assistants have been cut. We don’t have enough support in the classroom. It really is about the children and getting better education for children. We are spending our days managing the children, not teaching. We are really here to support class size and composition.
Kosh said she will happily ratify any deal that improves class size and composition. “I didn’t come into teaching for the money. I came in for the children and the love of education,” she said.
The B.C. Teachers’ Federation thanked its members through social media for their “commitment, courage and strength” during their months-long strike.
The union’s Nancy Knickerbocker said in a tweet that teachers will read details and vote on the agreement on Thursday. She said workers will also need to clean and prep schools that have been closed since mid-June.
Benula Larsen, president of the Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association, who was on Blanshard Street with other teachers Tuesday morning, said that after months of walking the picket line, rallying and handing out leaflets, news of the tentative deal is exciting.
Larsen said she thought the deal was coming because during the weekend, papers — proposals and counter proposals — were being exchanged through Ready for the first time.
“I hope what we’ve been fighting for is there,” Larsen said. “One of the biggest issues was class size and class composition — more funding for the classroom so that kids sitting at the back of the classroom and falling through the cracks could get one-on-one help and support."
“I strongly hope we do have extra money for the classroom for those students,” Larsen said.
Larsen said she could not confirm whether the government put more money into class size and composition but said she suspects that is true.
“I saw some of the language going back and forth but what is the actual tentative deal that came up at 3:50 this morning, I don’t know.”
Larsen thinks teachers are likely to accept a deal that puts more money into class size and composition but can’t speak to that.
“That’s why we have the ratifying vote on Thursday, and members will tell us whether we go back or not,” Larsen said. There are still teachers for whom the issue was wages and benefits, and justifiably so, Larsen said, because teachers have not had a pay increase in the last few years.
Peg Orcherton, chairwoman of the Greater Victoria School Board, said a big weight has been lifted.
“It’s a relief that the end is in sight for this long dispute and it will be fairly soon that our kids are back in the classrooms.”
The expectation by school officials is that students will be back in the classroom by Monday, but that has not been confirmed.
“The immediate goal is to get students back in classes as quickly as possible,” said B.C. School Trustees Association president Teresa Rezansoff. “We must then focus on the critical work of strengthening our public education system and rebuilding trust.”
Wayne Hunter, chairman of the Saanich school board, called the announcement “tremendous news.”
“We’ll wait and see what the details are but that’s fantastic news,” Hunter said.
“I don’t think anyone thought it would happen this quick,” Hunter said. “Vince Ready must have just said: ‘Look, we have to get this deal done now.’ ”
Hunter said he expected the premier would bring good news to the Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting next week but didn’t foresee the deal would happen Tuesday.
“Moving forward with Mr. [Jim] Iker’s temperament and Mr. [Peter] Fassbender’s — they are both good people and have a good relationship — I think they will be able to move forward in making education a high priority once again in B.C.... as we move forward in a new digitized education atmosphere,” Hunter said.
Negotiations resumed last week under increasing pressure from the public and suggestions by the government that legislating an end to the dispute was an option.
Last Wednesday, members of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation voted overwhelmingly to end their dispute if the government agreed to binding arbitration — something the government firmly rejected.
Teachers launched full-scale job action two weeks before the summer break, and students have missed more than two weeks of their new school year.
The federation and B.C. governments — no matter what political affiliation — have a decades-long history of animosity and difficult labour disputes.
More than 40,000 teachers in the province have been without a contract since June 2013, and class size and composition have been major stumbling blocks in the dispute.
Last January, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled the provincial government violated teachers' rights in 2002 when it declared they could no longer negotiate the size of classes or the number of support staff in classrooms. The province is appealing that decision.
But in an attempt to get movement at the bargaining table, the union began escalating stages of labour action in April.
About two weeks before the end of the last school year, teachers launched a full-scale walkout.
The teachers’ union and the government's bargaining team barely spoke during the summer, and at the end of July, Finance Minister Mike de Jong announced the B.C. government would pay parents $40 a day for every child 12 and under if the teachers' strike continued into the start of the school year.
Ready agreed to make himself available in mid-August, but he walked away from the bargaining table Aug. 30, saying the two sides were too far apart.
Schools remained closed Sept. 2 for half a million B.C. students.
The next day, Premier Christy Clark weighed into the dispute, saying no one wanted to see schools closed because of the ongoing teachers' strike, but the government had to stand firm or the labour dispute would never end.
Union president Jim Iker called on Sept. 5 for binding arbitration, saying it was the only solution available to get the dispute settled.
Education Minister Peter Fassbender panned the idea hours later. He said the province had a bad experience with the process once before, referring to a costly dispute with B.C. doctors more than a decade ago.
Later that evening, teachers rallied in downtown Vancouver, reiterating Iker's call for binding arbitration.
Fassbender explained Sept. 6 why he rejected the proposal. He said government negotiator Peter Cameron had advised against it, and added the offer was not serious and would not guarantee an end to the strike.
The teachers’ union made the next move on Sept. 8, announcing its members would vote on binding arbitration.
One day before that vote, de Jong announced an expected $266-million financial surplus for the provincial government's first financial quarter but he declined to use the funds to settle the teachers’ dispute.
Unions from across Canada announced last Wednesday, the day of the teachers’ vote, they had pledged millions of dollars of donations and loans for a hardship fund for B.C.’s teachers.
The teachers’ union announced that night results of the vote. Of the 30,699 teachers who cast ballots, 99.4 per cent voted to end the strike through binding arbitration.
Fassbender softened his stand last Thursday toward legislating teachers back to work and said legislation was another option available to government. Clark also said she was determined to get a deal before she leaves on a trade mission to India on Oct. 9, three days after the legislature resumes.
On Friday, the union confirmed its and the government's bargaining teams had begun negotiations and both sides spent the weekend in marathon discussions inside a hotel in Richmond.
