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MAY 28, 2014
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Carole Rooney photo
Cariboo Chilcotin Teachers’ Association 100 Mile House members Donna Forward, left, Steven Keller, Bryan Ardiel, Crystal Dawn Langton, Ray Kline, and Chris LeFlufy were picketing at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School during a one-day, rotating strike on May 27. They were showing solidarity in their battle for better wages and classroom conditions.
From walkouts to lockouts Public education bargaining battle escalates, both side turn up heat
Carole Rooney Free Press
If teachers don’t sign on the dotted line by the end of this term, the British Columbia Public School Employers’ Association (BCPSEA) will impose teacher lockouts at secondary schools June 25-26 – just as exams and graduation are underway. As the government’s bargaining agent, it will also lock out teachers from all public schools as of June 27. Meanwhile, BCPSEA is also banning teachers from helping students
during lunch breaks, and locking unteer activities we do. I can only them out anytime beyond a window take that to mean they no longer of 45 minutes before and want those done, which after class hours, beginning seems totally counterproMay 26. ductive.” Cariboo-Chilcotin The province also recently Teachers’ Association (CCTA) told teachers their pay would president Murray Helmer be cut 10 per cent under its says, other than the two-day current Phase 2 job action secondary lockouts, it is “hard of rotating one-day strikes, to understand what a lockout Helmer notes. Murray means” when teachers are still “They are trying to justify Helmer going to schools. the pay cut, so they [can] say “They are locking us out of lunch ‘you are not going to get paid fully – where we don’t currently have because you are not doing your job; responsibilities, other than the vol- so let’s define what parts of the job
you are not going to be allowed to do.” he adds. Helmer notes the planned lockouts will also impact all students in Grade 10 English and Social Studies 11, who are scheduled to write provincial exams on June 24. Under the secondary lockout beginning June 25, there will be no teachers on duty to mark thousands of exams. “Now, I hear Education Minister Peter Fassbender on the news [May 22] say ‘oh any teacher that marks an exam will get full pay.’ So I think it was very poorly thought out, and at Continued on A3