School's IN!!!

The tribe has spoken. The teachers have voted to go back to work bringing nearly two weeks of strike action...errr...political protest to an end. Thousands of teachers and students will make their way back to school, and even though it may seem like business as usual, the battle may have only just begun. No one came out a winner..not the teachers, not the government, and definately not the students and parents. Many teachers were still unhappy with Vince Ready's recommendations, as they didn't provide any clear guarantees of changes to classroom conditions. However, since many teachers still wanted to go back to work, they held their noses, and reluctanly voted YES. But given how far apart the two sides were before the strike, accepting Vince Ready's recommendations and going back to work was the best thing they could do at this point in time. Staying off the job any longer would probably have meant seeing all that public support going down the drain, and created a huge backlash from parents. Since teachers still have much "negotiating" to do with the government, they needed to maintain public support. Even though Campbell and the rest of his "Dic-tater-tots" (as NL fondly calls them ;-) ) would not provide written guarantees to make changes by next June 2006, it would be political suicide if they renege on their verbal promises -- but of course this is politics after all. The public will now be watching the government closer than ever -- and the government should not expect the teachers and public to blink.

Clearly the government's strategy backfired. They miscalculated the resolve of the BCTF, and thought their illegal job action would be quickly put to an end by the court (I think even the court was a little sympathetic to the teacher's cause). They also thought the other unions would have little support for the BCTF since they also had to live with a wage freeze. It was a flawed strategy from the start, and in what might be a subtle twist of irony to this whole dispute is that while the die-hard union bashers--err..opponents :) will likely feel even more bitterness towards them, Gordon Campbell and his roving sidekick Mike DeJong has succeeded in galvanizing the union solidarity movement in BC - making them stronger than ever... which is good for the 100,000+ other public servants (BCGEU, HEU, etc.) who will have their contracts expiring next spring. Maybe it will be shortlived, but it certainly doesn't bode well for the Liberals if they were expecting to wag their big legislative stick and strong-arm the unions into accepting contracts. Hopefully Campbell has learned his hard lesson, and realize that all you have to do is play fair and just negotiate in good faith. And that's not asking much....

And for those readers still wondering how we got here in the first place, here's a bit of a history lesson.