WEDNESDAY February
26 2014
FEATURE 21
At Home TASTE 35
Giardino Pizzeria SPORT 41
Blues find silver lining L o c a l N e w s . L o c a l M at t e r s
INTERACT WITH THE NEWS at N S N E W S .C O M
Teachers prepare for strike vote Initial action would not include school closures
JANE SEYD jseyd@nsnews.com
About 1,700 teachers on the North Shore will cast ballots in a strike vote next week. But so far, both teachers
and the government are telling parents there’s no reason to panic about the threat of an imminent strike. On Tuesday, the B.C. Teachers Federation announced they will conduct a strike vote between
March 4 and 6. President Jim Iker said the strike vote is intended to send a message to government that teachers are unhappy with the government’s position at bargaining talks and with the province’s wage offer that includes a 0.5 per cent increase in the first three years. “We can’t keep on getting zero after zero,” said Daniel
Storms, president of the North Vancouver Teachers Association, who represents about 1,200 teachers. Rob Millard, president of the West Vancouver Teachers Association, who represents about 550 teachers, said he anticipates teachers will vote overwhelmingly in favour of a strike. But the union said that doesn’t mean teachers
will be walking off the job. Even if the strike vote is approved, teachers won’t walk out, stop participating in extracurricular activities or doing report cards, said Iker. The union will have 90 days from the vote to take some kind of job action before having to hold another vote. So far, the union hasn’t said what that might be.
Peter Cameron, the government’s chief negotiator in the talks, told reporters Tuesday he was disappointed the union had decided to debate the contract talks in the media. Cameron described the government’s wage offer as “an opening position,” adding, “One of the factors in the negotiations should be fiscal reality.”
City to scrap ship’s stern BRENT RICHTER brichter@nsnews.com
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Some choices are hard.
The stern of the HMS Flamborough Head is nearly sunk. After being granted a reprieve from demolition by City of North Vancouver council in January, council voted Monday night to carry on with original plans to scrap the stern. The stern, which has sat in various spots on the waterfront since 2001, was intended to be incorporated into the National Maritime Centre.When that project fell through in 2008 because the province pulled financial support, the Flamborough Head remained without a clear purpose. When an independent engineer inspected the structure holding the stern in August last year, the report noted that the See Costs page 3
Some are easy.
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