No picket signs – teachers only strke when it is convenient for them – on strike – continue to picket – quitting shows their attitude!

So the employer goes to the LRB demanding that summer school be classified as an essential service. The LRB rules that yes, in certain instances, this is the case. The employer, upon reviewing the conditions of the LRB, determines that they are to onerous and therefore cancels summer school, the very thing they were arguing is essential.

If it’s essential, how then can the employer decide not to provide?

@woodowman – Teachers dont work in the summer, why would they picket? It makes no sense. Do you think basically giving up all of June’s pay was “convenient?”

When you are on strike you are on strike whether you work or not!

The SD administration who would have been running the summer schools didn’t want to miss their summer holidays.

It is unusual but it may be the common sense is prevailing at both the LRB and the SD admin office.

First, the LRB ruling is logical. It protects those students who have no reasonable way to improve the failing grade in the coming year. Anything more, while perhaps desirable, is not essential.

Second, the SD admin’s analysis is logical. Of course, they plan on running a full set of courses in September. And with declining enrollments, obtaining a seat for failed students will not be a problem. Ergo, no courses meet the LRB definition of essential.

in this writer’s opinion, summer school may not be the most effective way of upgrading a failing student’s performance. However, it is not politically correct to tell students that they have failed and need to repeat a year of studies. Instead, the work place will be left with this task at a future point in time.

Posted by: woodwoman on July 2 2014 8:26 AM

When you are on strike you are on strike whether you work or not!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve never seen a picket up on a business during a day that is regularly closed. Have you seen pickets up on the weekend for a business that is only open week days?

Picketing is done to block entry to the building so that regular business cannot occur. What exactly would be the point of picketing during the summer?

People with your argument are simply looking for any reason to bash teachers or unions in general. Attacking the people instead of the issues is typically a sign of someone with a weak argument.

The school district was following the labour boards guideline for summer school being deemed essential. The school district has to follow it to the letter or risk a grievance.
It is not that sd57 decided summer school was inconvenient, they had no option based on the labour board guidelines.

Teachers could picket the SD offices as was planned in mid June when the union said they would picket the admin offices in the summer if it wasn’t settled.

Perhaps they will many people are likely out of town plus there were pickets on Monday ( last days of school if there was no strike), Tuesday is a stat and honestly I haven’t seen them today but I have been at work since 6 so I wouldn’t see them if they were picketing.

I can see people forgetting about the strike if there is no reminders and honestly in my opinion if it’s for the kids get out there every chance you get and try to show the public why we should pay for fertility treatments , removing the bottom steps of the pay scale , $3000.00 in massage therapy and 225 million increase in prep and pd annually.

Does anyone else get the feeling that the BCTF was assuming that they would be legislated back after losing a couple of days pay and get a decent raise with public support behind it but now they have had their bluff called and don’t really know what to do next?

Interceptor,

I am a BCTF member. I do not know because strategic details aren’t shared with the masses, but I think it is actually the opposite. To me it looked like the BCTF stepped up action at the latest point to avoid legislation. Job action was stepped up just as the legislature was ending its session. The next session is not until October, so it would take a costly temporary session to get any legislation put in place before the school year starts. The only thing I could foresee in the way of early legislation would be for the October date to be moved up and then they start earlier than expected.

Interceptor – I agree with you given the history or strike and then legislated back to work it was almost a sure bet. As much as the teachers claim the government tries to force strikes the BCTF tries to force the governments hand even more so in my opinion.

I for one am glad the government did not legislate them back to work.

Smooth – why were the pickets out on Monday , June 30 – no school and no students. Teachers were in front of the SD administration building in full force for the last weeks why? – no students attend there.
And you would also inconvenient the clean-up and maintenance that occurs during the summer. What comes from the 2 weeks and rotating strke is that your members do not know the definiton of a strike – strikes do not take breaks.

Smooth

If the government wanted to legislate an end to the strike it would have been very easy to extend the sitting to introduce and pass legislation before adjourning for the summer.

With the sides roughly half a billion bucks apart I can see the strike going well into the fall and am sticking with the prediction that it will be Halloween before it is settled.

Instead in focusing on the personalities on each side, perhaps it is time to focus on process. Two prominent mediators have now turned down the “opportunity” to help work out a deal. The government and the union appear to have a shared POV regarding avoidance of legislation.

In traditional negotiations, there exists yet another alternative to mediation or government legislation. That is arbitration; the process where both parties make their presentation and arguments to an independent third party (often a subject matter expert on both content and process) who then arbitrates a resolution.

Arbitration is required by law in this province for many types of disputes and is commonly written into collective agreements as a last resort mechanism. Why is it that there is no interest being expressed in this resolution process? My understanding is that the BC government is the “unwilling player” in this area.

There haven’t seen anyone at any of the schools I’ve driven by for over a week. Last Monday was the last day and even then there were only 3 of them.