Bungling on both sides as teachers go on strike

VICTORIA - It looked like amateur hour at the legislature Thursday as teachers prepared to walk off the job.
Who are the good guys in this, a Press Gallery colleague wondered aloud?
No one, really.
The Liberal government has invited this strike and failed to take the most simple steps to try and head it off.
When the government used legislation to rewrite the teachers' contract in 2002, taking out clauses governing issues like class size, it created an obvious problem.
The reasoning behind the change makes sense. Class sizes, for example, are an issue of educational effectiveness and one of many possible priorities. The ultimate responsibility for deciding on the best approach should lie with elected trustees and MLAs.
But they are also vitally important to teachers, and an important element of their working conditions. They need a chance to make their case on issues like class size, and support for special needs students.
The problem was clear then. It remained clear over the last three years. And commissioner Don Wright reminded the government of the need to address teachers' concerns in 2004. They have legitimate rights which the legislation removed.
But the government did nothing that could be considered even a serious effort to address the problem. Only Thursday did Labour Minister Mike de Jong announce that Vince Ready would review the bargaining process, and consider teachers' concerns.
Education Minister Shirley Bond also leaped into action Thursday, holding up a new "Learning Round Table" as the forum that would solve teachers' disaffection.
It was an ludicrously empty political gesture. The membership and mandate were undefined, though Bond said trustees, teachers, parent advisory councils and administrators should all be involved. The round table wouldn't have any real power; Bond would just relay the substance of the discussions to cabinet. It was meaningless.
And it turned out the government hadn't even pitched the idea when BCTF head Jinny Sims, BC Federation of Labour head Jim Sinclair and other union leaders met de Jong a few hours earlier in a last-ditch effort to head off the dispute.
Bond said the government had just decided on the round table. And she acknowleged that reporters were hearing about it before the BCTF. That's an indication the round table proposal has more to do with dodging the wrath of parents than reaching a deal.
Meanwhile, Sims emerged from the meeting with de Jong demonstrating just how tough it would be for even a more skilled government to get a deal with the union.
The BCTF has real and serious grievances.
But the union has treated collective bargaining like a crusade for justice, with Sims comparing the strike to acts of civil disobedience by civil rights campaigners in the American south.
Effective collective bargaining demands realism. The goal is to get the best deal you can, not to insist on achieving what you consider your due.
And sometimes, that means accepting a crummy deal indeed.
Both government and union have sat in a car speeding toward a cliff for a couple of years now, each insisting the other should do something about it, neither willing to reach out and grab the steering wheel.
And now we're at the cliff.
Negotiations often take unions and employers to the edge. But smart ones leave themselves a last-minute way out - a concession that can allow both to claim partial victory, a path to reluctant settlement.
The BCTF and the government haven't done that. The union does not appear to be interested in compromise; the government's silly "round table" ploy shows it is not prepared to make a real effort.
The losers are children and parents.
The loss of a few days of school are a major hassle for many families, especially working parents.
And the prospect of a school system staffed with teachers who feel beat up and abused by their employer is much worse news.
Footnote: The strike is illegal even without passage of the contract legislation, since the LRB hasn't yet set the required essential service levels. It now looks like we face several days of court proceedings, and penalties for teachers and the union. It's a result that signals failure by everyone involved.