Bright and early Tuesday morning, thousands of children across the province and on the Sunshine Coast will be putting away their summer vacation thoughts and picking up their pencils and books for the start of another school year.
The start of a school year should be filled with excited anticipation and the prospects of a fresh start. But that excitement is certainly tempered this year as students return to their classrooms amid clouds of uncertainty -dark clouds they have no control over and did not cause.
In July, teachers voted overwhelmingly in favour of job action if a new collective bargaining agreement could not be reached between the British Columbia Teachers' Federation and the provincial government. Talks between the BCTF and the province have started up again, but little progress at the bargaining table has been made, which almost certainly guarantees that phase one of the planned teachers' job action will go into effect starting Tuesday.
Most students and parents will not notice the immediate effects of phase one job action, as it calls for teachers to step away from administrative duties. But we can only imagine what the next phases will look like if a deal can't be reached. And with this coming on the heels of an announcement from the BCTF Wednesday night where they issued 72-hour strike notice, it could get worse before it gets better.
Teachers are asking for higher salaries and compensation, for government to address issues around class sizes and compensation and the need to bring the bargaining process back to the local school district level.
Education Minister George Abbott admitted this week that talks are not going well and that something will have to give - on both sides - for an agreement to be struck. He also said government will not sit back should the labour dispute escalate to the point of a full-blown strike with teachers out on the picket lines.
We also hope that it doesn't come to that either. We saw how things turned nasty a few years ago, with several angry protests on the Coast, a packed rally at the Rockwood Centre and much animosity on both sides.
While we recognize that teachers, like any employees, are entitled to a fair benefit and compensation package, some common ground must be achieved. Both sides have to give a little, and we hope they can strike a deal soon.
In the end, no one wins from a full-blown strike. The biggest losers in this are the students and the quality education they will be missing out on.
