As the teachers’ union and their employers bargain a new contract, the Richmond Teachers’ Association president is warning proposals on the table could result in a “significant loss” for local teachers.
The current contract expires on June 30, and the two parties, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association, have been in discussions about the new contract since February.
Despite proposals they don’t like, RTA president Liz Baverstock said she remains “optimistic:” both parties are still at the table and talking, and she believes a deal is possible. However, she is not impressed by what’s on the table.
“It would be a significant loss for Richmond what’s being proposed by BCPSEA,” Baverstock said.
According to Alan Chell, chair of BCPSEA and a trustee from Revelstoke, the union and BCPSEA seem to agree on issues such as class size, ratios for non-enrolling teachers — counsellors, teacher-librarians, ELL teachers and so forth — and preparation time. Where they disagree is on class composition.
BCPSEA believes there should be local decision-making on how resources are used in a school district when considering teachers’ classroom workload.
The BCTF has proposed harmonizing contracts across the province so that each school district has weighted classroom composition language for special-needs students whereby a special-needs student is equivalent to, for example, 2.5 or 3.5 students.
Chell said formulas are restrictive and, if weighting for special-needs students were applied across the province, it would add $1 billion in costs. He added that BCPSEA has been given a mandate and they have to stay within that dollar amount.
Weighting would also require more teachers and more space and BCPSEA’s position is it’s not educationally the best way to allocate resources.
When the Supreme Court restored contract language in 2016 about class size and composition, stripped away by the province in 2002, it meant school districts were to revert to 2002 staffing levels. However, contracts differ from school district to school district in both class size and composition.
Baverstock pointed out Richmond has a strong contract and, by her estimation, if what’s being proposed by BCPSEA is accepted, Richmond would lose 120 of the 310 full-time staff members that have been brought on since 2016.
The union’s opening proposal for wages has been for a one-time four-per-cent labour market adjustment as well as a salary grid restructuring which would result in a seven-per-cent increase in wages.
This would be in addition to a two-per-cent increase each year for the next three years. This would mean an increase of 13 per cent in the first year, Chell explained.
He said he understands that this is just an opening proposal, but it doesn’t fit within the amount of money they have to bargain with.
Baverstock pointed out B.C. teachers, however, are at the lower end of the pay scale across the country, according to the BCTF’s calculations, the second lowest in Canada.
“We have to start closing that gap,” she said.
