BCTF Court Case - Score one for the taxpayer

[George+]

Surely, Urbane, a man of your intelligence recognizes that
both the RCMP and the Health Workers have been
successful at the CSC.

Why would the BCTF not try? with Labour's help.

Class size and composition IS about the kids.

[Urbane]

Surely, Urbane, a man of your intelligence recognizes that
both the RCMP and the Health Workers have been
successful at the CSC.

Why would the BCTF not try? with Labour's help.

Class size and composition IS about the kids.

The Supreme Court dealt with two RCMP rulings. In the first, it found that the RCMP have the right to bargain collectively. In the second, it found that the employer did not infringe on the employees’ rights when it rolled back wages because the rollback was in line with other public sector settlements and because the employees got other improvements later. It is the second ruling that the government is referring to in its submission.

“(That case) confirms that collective agreement terms do not exist as constitutional entitlements, and that the right of employees is to a process of meaningful consultation before significant terms are removed or amended by legislation,” the government argues in the document.

Further, the government says that a process of meaningful consultation and negotiating is adequate because the constitution protects the process and not the outcome of bargaining.
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2015/01/2 ... ment-says/

So there you go. It sounds a lot like what the BCCA said today.

[madmudder]

Keith Baldrey= Crusty Clarks personal media puppet.

[George+]

It is not meaningful consultation, or bargaining, to give one side
all the power to do whatever they want with working conditions,
and in negotiations

Nowhere else in Canada does this happen.

Of course Labour will have a completely different view than your right wing view, Urbane.

And there is a good possibility the Appeal court judges are wrong.

http://rankandfile.ca/2015/01/22/what-t ... or-labour/

[LordEd]

Did anybody read the HEU decision before deciding it was the same situation?

http://www.heu.org/sites/default/files/ ... ruling.pdf

This point is extremely important from that decision as it applies to the BCTF (bold mine):

125 The ESLA did not arise out of collective bargaining but, rather, was
imposed by the government on health sector employers pursuant to the
recommendations of an inquiry committee. Since neither the ESLA nor the HLAA
was the outcome of a collective bargaining process, modifying them cannot constitute
an interference with past bargaining processes. Further, since the ESLA and HLAA
rely heavily on the authority of the government for their existence, and are outside of
the power of health sector employees and employers, there is no potential for future
collective bargaining over matters relating to either the ESLA and HLAA. Since there
can be no future collective bargaining relating to the ESLA or the HLAA, there can
be no interference with future collective bargaining over these matters either. It
follows that neither s. 7 nor s. 8 has the purpose or effect of interfering with collective
bargaining, past or future.

CSC was put in by legislation.

[The Green Barbarian]

It is not meaningful consultation, or bargaining, to give one side
all the power to do whatever they want with working conditions,
and in negotiations

Nowhere else in Canada does this happen.
/

And yet that's exactly what happened in 1998 with the idiotic NDP doing a back-room deal with the BCTF, against the wishes and without the support of school boards. And that's why it had to go! Thank you BCCA for putting the final nail in this coffin - 17 years of stupidity thanks to the BC NDP.

[The Green Barbarian]

Did anybody read the HEU decision before deciding it was the same situation?

.

LOL - of course not. Why let the actual facts get in the way of a talking point justifying a fruitless endeavor that will only cost taxpayers and BCTF members millions of dollars. The BCTF has to keep the automatons like KGT on board with this nonsense, and so has to continue to scramble to barf up talking points, swallowed whole by those that just want to continue the fight, and continue to screw over the kids.

[kgcayenne]

A student’s right to an education should not be negotiated in a collective agreement or limited through legislation. For almost two decades, the narrative around the composition of classrooms has treated students with special needs as “the problem,” singling out and discriminating against them as a particular group of students. The term “composition” has become so entrenched in our language that we've lost sight of the fact that we’re talking about people; about a vulnerable group of children whose needs are not being met by the education system and who have the right to be in our classrooms, the same as any other student. It is time to shift and refocus the conversation to how schools and educators accommodate this fundamental right to quality, inclusive education.

On almost a daily basis, Inclusion BC receives calls from parents of students with special needs whose children are either being sent home from school on a regular basis or have withdrawn from the public school system entirely. Our education system is failing students with special needs in ever increasing numbers. Continuing litigation and years of contract disputes about class composition will not fix it.

Since the 1990’s we've known that the inclusion of class composition language in collective agreements directly affects the placement of students with special needs. Access to the regular classroom for children with special needs is being driven by contract language, significantly affecting the choice of classrooms for students. It places emphasis on the special need of the child as a problem or potential problem, threatening their right to attend their neighbourhood school.

Inclusion BC Executive Director Faith Bodnar says, “it’s time to change the conversation. Let’s start talking about the appropriate supports needed by teachers and students to ensure that all students have a positive learning experience in an inclusive school system. Let’s also talk about the right of students with special needs to be in our schools and stop singling them out as problems to be negotiated around in labour disputes or in the courts.” Resolution requires leadership and a commitment to the right of all students to receive a quality education in their neighbourhood schools with the supports they need regardless of whether they have designated special needs.

The provincial government must fund the necessary resources, professional training and staff supports that would ensure that all students, whether identified as having special learning needs or not, have the best possible educational opportunities among their peers in neighbourhood schools. Teachers, support staff, principals and district administrators must have a better understanding of positive behaviour supports and schools must have educators who are able to de-escalate a conflict with a student.

Wow, this is a perspective that deserves some thought.

[mr.bandaid]

*removed*

[The Green Barbarian]

Wow, this is a perspective that deserves some thought.

Yes - a perspective that actually puts the needs of the kid ahead of the needs of the BCTF. Mind-blowing in its simplicity.

[Rwede]

Miles to go yet in the CSC. RCMP already won a recent decision there 6-1.

Reg Volk • an hour ago
Miles to go yet in the CSC. RCMP already won a recent decision there 6-1.

http://www.castanet.net/news/BC/138846/Teachers-lose-on-class-size#comments


George, are you stealing Reg Volk's comment from the news story and passing it off as your own?

George, I'm still waiting for an answer. Are you plagiarizing Mr Volk's comments?

[Urbane]

Excellent summary and excellent advice for the BCTF:

B.C.’s Teachers’ Federation would do well to raise the white flag
GARY MASON
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, May. 01 2015

It’s difficult to overstate what a shattering blow the B.C. Court of Appeal’s ruling Thursday on classroom working conditions is to the B.C. Teachers’ Federation. The union didn’t just lose. It got thumped in unequivocal fashion.

The union has already indicated it will seek leave to appeal the decision. After reading the appeal court’s 4-1 ruling, one strains to see where the federation believes it has a chance at victory at the Supreme Court of Canada. Also, one wonders how warm teachers will be to the idea of seeing their union dues go towards financing such a challenge. The union has already spent $2-million it won from the government at an earlier point in this long-running squabble – money it now has to return.

The ruling by B.C.’s highest court is complex and overturns several findings that were made at trial earlier by Justice Susan Griffin. In fact, the appeal court justices were unsparing (unusually so) in their critique of legal and factual errors that Justice Griffin made in rendering her judgments in favour of the teachers.

At the core of this dispute is the question of what constitutes working conditions and whether teachers have a right to negotiate them at the bargaining table.

And this is where the appeal court justices and Justice Griffin have a fairly major divergence of opinion.

This case has its roots in legislation that existed as far back as 2001. It gave teachers the right to negotiate class size and composition, among other things. The Liberals under Gordon Campbell ripped that legislation up, prompting the union to take them to court on the grounds that the government’s action was unconstitutional. The trial judge – Justice Griffin – sided with the union in 2002.

The government brought in new legislation that was an attempt to address some of the issues raised earlier by Justice Griffin. But Bill 22 still gave the province control over the class size and composition matters the union – and courts – maintained were illegally taken away from them.

Not surprisingly, the same Justice Griffin ruled that legislation was off-side as well, which prompted the government to seek leave to appeal. The result of that petition was made public by the appeal court Thursday.

Where Justice Griffin had ruled the B.C. government had negotiated in bad faith prior to introducing Bill 22, the appeal court disagreed. It said the teachers were afforded a meaningful avenue to advance their positions and as such their freedom of association was respected.

To me, however, the most salient part of the decision revolves around the question of what a government does and does not have the right to control exclusively, unburdened of compromises wrought at the bargaining table. Like the earlier legislation it replaced, Bill 22 had the effect of imposing class size and composition numbers, restricting a school board’s power to determine staffing levels and establishing caseloads for teachers.

In her judgment, Justice Griffin referred to these provisions as “working conditions.” The appeal court justices saw them more simply, and less judgmentally, as terms that were stripped from the earlier legislation.

“We accept that these subjects affect teachers’ working conditions, but they engage more than just working conditions; they directly engage education policy. We consider this to be a centrally important fact.” Accordingly, they chose to adopt the more neutral term “Affected Topics.”

“The Affected Topics involve not only working conditions, but matters of education policy,” the four majority judges agreed. “The province is charged with the democratic responsibility to develop education policy in the public interest and is held politically accountable for the policy choices it makes. Indeed, the provision of public education is one of the longest standing obligations of the provincial government, dating back even before British Columbia joined Canada in 1871.”

It is difficult to disagree.

A decision Thursday in favour of the teachers would have had massive financial implications for the government. It would have meant the hiring of hundreds of new teachers to retroactively address the effects of ripping up the earlier legislation. The government had estimated it would cost $500-million to meet the needs of such a ruling. And that, too, was something the appeal court judges found untenable, suggesting it would “unduly interfere with the legislature’s constitutional role in allocating public resources.”

The BCTF must seek permission to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Last year, there were 80 applications from B.C. cases for an SCC appeal and eight were accepted, so there is no reason to believe the union’s application is sure to succeed.

The union will not win at the country’s highest court. It would be better off negotiating terms of a peace accord with the government.

[Hurtlander]

But keep in mind that Gary Mason is a journalist not a constitutional lawyer....his guess is every bit a shot in the dark as ours is right now....

[Urbane]

But keep in mind that Gary Mason is a journalist not a constitutional lawyer....his guess is every bit a shot in the dark as ours is right now....

Agreed. It is true that yesterday's ruling by the BCAA shot a lot of holes through Justice Griffin's ruling though and even Sandy Garossino now says that the ruling was "reasoned and complex" and not an "ideological sellout." She also says that now an appeal by the BCTF to the SCC will be more complicated. We should know within about four months if the SCC will hear an appeal and if they say yes we have another year or two to wait after that for a final ruling.

[LordEd]

Surely, Urbane, a man of your intelligence recognizes that
both the RCMP and the Health Workers have been
successful at the CSC.

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1 ... ruling.pdf

How does this apply to the teachers? All it says is they're current (previous) process was not considered collective bargaining and they can choose to bargain collectively in a different process.

(Health workers mentioned in previous post).