Another offer the BCTF can't refuse

Earlier this week Labour Minister Mike De Jong introduced Bill 12, The Teachers Collective Agreement Act. The legislation calls for a "cooling off" period between teachers and their employers, while establishing an Industrial Inquiry Commission to find out why the last four bargaining disputes in BC's public school system were ended with back-to-work legislation.

First of all, "cooling off" is Liberal-speak for taking away the British Columbia Teachers Federation's right to job action. Gordon Campbell and his teacher-biting mascot Christy Clark thought they had managed to shut teachers up about issues like class sizes when they legislated public education as an Essential Service. However, they didn't realize that according to the Labour Code, 'essential' means matters of life and limb, not having to make up a grade 3 math class in July. After realizing the BCTF still had the right to strike, the Liberals believed their only option was to take that right away.

If you put your thumb to your index finger and apply the right amount of pressure, you can see what an Industrial Inquiry Commission will accomplish. When Mike De Jong says "there's a problem in collective bargaining", what he really means is that the Liberals think collective bargaining is the problem. As the public has witnessed with hospital services, BC Ferries, universities, and elsewhere in the public sector, the Liberals don't like bargaining. They like their hand-picked employers to hardball the unions to the brink, have their allies in the Canwest media cabal distort the issues so the public turns on those unions, and then Gordon Campbell rides in like some glib, inebriated White Knight, ordering people back to work and saving the day.

The real problem with collective bargaining for the Liberals is they haven't tried it. That's why real wages in what's supposedly the fastest-growing economy in Canada (source: BC Liberal campaign materials) only grew 2.4% per capita last year, compared to Saskatchewan's 4.4 (source: Statistics Canada). In passing Bill 12, the Liberals have made a partial realization that something is wrong with public sector bargaining. A full realization can only be made if they look in the mirror, because that's where the problem lies.