BCTF ramps up rhetoric against province
Posted September 1, 2014 1:23 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
BURNABY (NEWS1130) – With no end in sight to the education dispute, the head of the BC Teachers’ Federation is ramping up the rhetoric against the government.
Speaking at the Labour Day festivities at Swangard Stadium in Burnaby, President Jim Iker confirms the union has made a special request of its members.
“We’ve asked our members not to get involved in setting up alternative forms of daycare. We’ve asked them to put the pressure on MLAs and trustees because that’s what is going to get us the negotiated deal, not $40-a-day,” he says.
He calls the government’s offer to help parents pay for childcare is a scheme, adding the union is only asking for $3-a-day of funding per student.
Iker is hopeful a deal can be reached this week but says government has to provide more resources to deal with class size and composition. “So far the government isn’t willing to put in any more money to resolve that situation. We need government to say ‘yeah, let the courts deal with the aspects of the restoration.'”
NDP Leader John Horgan was also in attendance. He says he has written an open letter to Premier Christy Clark demanding she step in and help put an end to the dispute.
“What she should be doing is sitting at the table and working through the class size and class composition issues, teacher ratio issues, the whole host of issues that have been apparent to anyone who has been paying attention for the last decade,” he says.
He says Clark is more familiar with this dispute than the the fight between the province and the truckers’ association, of which she helped broker a deal.
“I believe the crisis was, in fact, manufactured 12 years ago when Christy Clark was the minister of education. She ripped up collective agreements, the courts have found twice that she violated the Charter of Rights of teachers. They are appealing that, I understand that, but it doesn’t resolve the issue,” he explains.
He also calls Education Minister Peter Fassbender a failure, adding he needs to step aside.
Fassbender has already said Clark will not be getting involved.
