Public school employers mull cutting pay, locking out teachers including, scheduled, teachers, benefits, obtained

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Public school employers mull cutting pay, locking out teachers



Representatives of the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association are scheduled to meet Monday to discuss responses to the teachers’ job action, including pay reductions and a lockout.

Three response options are laid out in a discussion paper prepared for Monday’s meeting obtained by The Vancouver Sun.

The first option would be to force the union, rather than the employer, to pay for benefits during a strike. Another option would be to reduce the pay of teachers since under the job action, they are doing less work. The final option is a lockout, the discussion paper states.

The three options represent a continuum and none would be used without strategy and forethought, said B.C. Public School Employers’ Association chairwoman Melanie Joy. Any such action on the part of employers would also require B.C. Labour Relations Board approval, she added.

The purpose of Monday’s meeting is to see how trustees from around the province are managing in their districts and to gauge whether there is any desire at the local level to put pressure on the teachers, Joy said.

“In negotiation, having that power equilibrium, where both sides feel the pressure, is important,” she said. “The other side at some point has to feel pressure, too, or there’s no incentive to move forward at the bargaining table. If [the teachers’ union] members aren’t feeling it, it makes it difficult, it makes it stagnant.”

B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Susan Lambert called the options outlined in the discussion paper irresponsible.

“It seems to be provocative and maybe deliberately so,” she said.

Teachers are teaching, and are able to focus more on students because of the job action, she said.

“So it seems inexplicable that BCPSEA would want to interrupt that situation and to inflame it. It would seem to me to be a much better use of their energy and resources to come productively to the table.”

Lambert said the teachers have no plans to escalate their job action.

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The discussion paper notes that under B.C.’s Labour Relations Code, health and welfare payments during strikes and lockouts (other than pensions) must be continued by the employer only if the union pays for the contributions. It goes on to say that most collective agreements for teachers do not address the payment of these premiums during a strike or lockout and that during past labour disruptions, districts have continued to pay the benefits.

A reduction in pay is based on the notion that teachers are doing less work during their current job action.

Phase I, which started last month, includes a reduction in supervision duties, no preparation or distribution of report cards, no parent-teacher meetings and withdrawal from some extracurricular activities, among other measures.

“The logical proposition is that teachers should be paid only for work actually performed and not for work that is not done due to a strike,” the discussion paper says. “Therefore, it makes sense that employers would respond with the commensurate reduction to pay.”

The paper goes on to note that there are significant obstacles to this action, including establishing that teachers are not, in fact, performing the work and placing a monetary value on it. Employers should also consider the risk that a pay reduction would alienate teachers who are not strictly following the union’s guidelines and could harm the relationship between teachers and their employers at the local level, it says.

The final option considered would be to lockout teachers.

“A significant area of concern with respect to this option is the need to manage the public perception of engaging in a lockout and preventing teachers from performing work,” the report says.

There were three teacher lockouts in B.C. at the local level before the province’s public schools moved to provincial bargaining in 1993. Since then, there has never been a lockout.

Joy emphasized that trustees value their teachers and that the options presented in the discussion paper are purely strategic.

“I don’t think it should ever be lost sight of, the fact that the two parties are respectful to each other and [the discussion paper options are] to provide pressure, not to get back at anybody.”

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Representatives of the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association are scheduled to meet Monday to discuss responses to the teachers’ job action, including pay reductions and a lockout.