Local CUPE contract expired two years ago, but board says settlement near
CUPE school support workers in the Howe Sound district are still without a contract and have been now for nearly two years.
The three-year contract between Local 779 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and School District 48 expired Dec. 31, 1998, and parents have begun expressing concern at recent PAC meetings about the potential for a strike.
The school board, however, says a settlement with CUPE workers could be reached early in the new year.
"There won’t be any labour disruption," said assistant secretary-treasurer John Hetherington.
"We are very close. We have just got a couple of little things to sort out. We will probably finish off in early January," he said.
"We can’t really comment on what the outstanding issues are at this point but there is nothing too contentious."
The two sides last met formally in September this year. Hetherington said another meeting will likely be scheduled for January.
"Potentially it could happen before that but with Christmas approaching, it is not easy to pin people down."
The Howe Sound district was lucky to avoid labour action early this year when more than 20,000 CUPE members – including bus drivers, custodians, noon hour supervisors, clerical support staff, crossing guards, special needs and youth and cultural workers, maintenance workers, library assistants, science and computer technicians and food services workers – walked off the job leaving 350,000 B.C. kids without classes.
Because of where they were in their bargaining process, members of the Howe Sound local were not in a legal position to join the strike, but the labour strife resulted in the appointment of an Industrial Inquiry Commission.
The recommendations of that first IIC were rejected by CUPE in March this year. This was followed by back-to-work legislation and the establishment of a second Industrial Inquiry Commission, or IIC2.
The recommendations of that second IIC, made public in June, were endorsed by almost all CUPE locals in the province.
The next step was to implement those recommendations.
The recommendations of the IIC2 satisfied CUPE concerns with key job security issues such as secondary seniority. It also recommended the application of a four-hour minimum work day for teaching assistants. Wage increases, pay equity resolutions and a benefits trust were also addressed.
School district secretary-treasurer, Nancy Edwards, said in October that the implementation of that agreement is what is currently being negotiated at the Howe Sound table.
"Our most recent negotiations have been around things like the four-hour minimum and whether there will be any positions exempt from it," noted Edwards.
Local 779 has not been available for comment since October but CUPE says, after 24 months of negotiations, many B.C. schools are now close to signing collective agreements.
The union says there is now more similarity in CUPE K-12 contracts across the province and that the long round of talks has resulted in solidarity among B.C. school locals.
The B.C. Teachers Federation contract with the province is also due to expire, in June next year. This year, however, saw the teachers closing ranks with the CUPE school support workers, and in the last few months those with a stake in teacher talks have begun posturing at the provincial level. The debate is now beginning to filter down to the individual school PAC level.
Outgoing school board chair Amy Shoup recently told Myrtle Philip parents that teachers – after being held to a zero, zero and two per cent wage increase – now want nothing less than an eight per cent increase.
"I have heard they are not going to take it anymore," she said. "Where is that money going to come from? Is it going to come out of your kids’ class?"
Shoup said before she became a trustee, she "used to think they manufactured money in the school board basement, but they don’t. It’s a balancing act."
Teachers are also calling for smaller class sizes at the intermediate level. But the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory councils and the B.C. Principals and Vice-Principals Association have issued public statements calling into question the value of class-size limits.
The BCCPAC says that over the past three years, more than $70 million has been spent in hiring additional teachers to meet class limits and that the capital costs of providing more classrooms is also significant. As well, class size grievances are resulting in monetary settlements.
The BCCPAC says in one district a teacher accepted money to settle a grievance involving only one extra student in the class. Another incident in the same district saw a teacher receive a cheque for $35,000.
In another district, the BCCPAC notes a Kindergarten teacher was given cash that could have been used to hire a teacher’s assistant in return for agreeing to allow one extra child over the limit of 20.
Shoup said that one student who pushes a class over the limit is being referred to as the $65,000 child. That child must either be bumped to another school, sometimes splitting families between school communities, or another teacher hired with limited funds. Some parents say there needs to be more flexibility.
Most of the negotiations for a teachers’ contract will be done at a provincial level. "There is very little that is done at a local level," said Hetherington. "Typically there are a few things but certainly nothing monetary."
