BCTF vote for binding arbitration doesn’t bring us closer to an end to the dispute: analyst
Posted September 11, 2014 8:04 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – With teachers voting strongly in favour of ending the strike if the province agrees to binding arbitration, does that mean we are any closer to seeing an end to the dispute?
Social policy professor Michael Prince with the University of Victoria says we should not expect kids to be going back to school soon.
“I don’t think we are under any illusions that this is going to cause [Education Minister] Fassbender to hold a press conference to say ‘Geez, we are going to change our minds.’ I think for people hoping that the schools will open again, the dispute will end and the kids will be back in the classroom… I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”
Prince believes the binding arbitration vote was a good positioning move for teachers, saying it shows the public that they are being flexible and open to other options.
But he thinks the main issue is that the BCTF and the government simply have lost the ability to communicate.
“They may not be exchanging phone calls. They may not be meeting face to face. But more fundamentally, they really are talking almost two different languages from two different planets. It is like that old book ‘Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.’ This is of galactic proportions.”
Prince says surprisingly, both sides are relatively close when it comes to salary negotiations, but they are still too far apart on other issues like classroom size and composition. Because of this, he expects the strike to go into a fourth month.
