Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Response to Sandy Garossino

A number of teachers have pointed to a string of tweets by Sandy Garossino, who spoke so eloquently about the meaning of Justice Griffin's decision during our strike.

I very much respect and appreciate her support for teachers and careful explanation of the court case to the public.

However I do disagree with her analysis on our bargaining situation.

Here are my responses to her arguments:

My assessment is that what you achieved is very close to the highest negotiated settlement possible for you, if not the highest.

At the decisive moments it is very normal for those who are taking risks to feel nervous, fearful and uncertain. The art of negotiation is not to blink just at this moment. Yes, this government has a very different agenda than teachers. Yes, this is an extremely difficult bargaining situation. But teachers, workers and citizens have not ever made substantial gains in easy conditions. It always takes risk and sacrifice to win improvements to public services. The history of the labour movement demonstrates that taking risks in seemingly impossible situations is what has won historic gains. The eight hour day, maternity leave, health and safety rights - none of these came easily. We are in an era of massive inequality in which the small few who benefit from privatizing public services are pushing very hard to substantively undermine public education. This isn't just in BC, it is around the world, typified in the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM). It won't be easy, but we will never win if we don't try.

One of the most destructive aspects of litigation is the fantasy that there's a clear or certain path to victory & you just hv to find it.

I actually don't usually support legal strategies to make gains for public services - I agree they are limited. But the path of the tentative agreement is exactly the one government wants: Limited new monies for public education (which can be taken somewhere else...through yet more downloading of costs onto school boards); silencing the most eloquent critics of privatization and underfunding, the teachers, for five years; eliminating the need to ever implement the court case in the event government loses. I don't have illusions in a clear or certain path. But every victory requires risk and courage. If you never take that path, you never reach your goal.

Teachers: You have a LOT TO LOSE if you reject this deal and proceed directly to appeal. This cannot be overstated.

We have a lot to lose if we do take this deal. More educational change aimed at privatizing a public system with no teacher action/negotiations to challenge those changes; More years of chronic underfunding, teacher stress and burnout and lost opportunities for children; A repeat of this bargaining round when the "re-opener" happens if we win the court case.

I am not convinced this deal is any/much better than a legislated agreement which would be the absolute worst case scenario. They cannot legislate away the court decision - it would be illegal and would hurt their case on appeal. I have no trust that the small additional dollars in the Education Fund will translate into more teachers. It is fundamentally the same as the LIF, and during the years of the LIF, teacher numbers have decreased. This is what our own union has documented.

Now is not the time to blink.

12 comments:

  1. I'm not a teacher, but I think teachers have to vote no to this deal. If members aren't financially able to keep striking, voting no and returning to work under no contract is a better option than agreeing to a "re-opener", or anything else that threatens having the class size and composition language reinstated.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree. Once again, our union is willing to settle for too little, too soon. We need new union leadership.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The opposite. The government could wait much longer than teachers could. If you're unhappy with the deal you should ask your union leadership why they thought it was a good idea to go into a prolonged strike without a strike fund.

      There's a lot that can be accomplished in the negotiations, but I think it was always unrealistic for the BCTF to think it could overturn the results of the election through job action.

      Delete
  3. Tara, your answer to tweet three doesn't consider the reality that a lot of younger teachers and two-teacher families faced which was that a fight to the death was going to be a lot worse on the teachers' side than on the government's. The government is not going to the polls for two-three years but teachers need to pay bills right now. We are lucky to be a one teacher, one non-teacher family. Between one earner and with savings we might make it to December before we had mortgage issues. We have friends who will not make it to October, let alone December. The old adage about taking what you can now and living to fight another day really looks pretty reasonable in our household.

    Your suggestion that we vote no and go back to work is not likely to work because right now the government knows they are in the best position they will ever be to hold the BCTF's feet to the fire. They have no need to let Teachers go back to work without a contract because they would be able to wave a red flag to the public blaming teachers for any continued strike. They would also thrive on the weakness of a union that went into a strike with no strike fund and then couldn't get their teachers to vote for the agreed-upon deal. It would be the perfect opportunity to break the BCTF once and for all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't see the government locking us out if we went back without a contract... wouldn't that just garner support for teachers (those we.may lose briefly for voting no on the deal tomorrow)?

      Delete
    2. It would certainly garner support for the teachers....in the long run. But in the short run the gov't would have a boost because the teachers' voted against their negotiating team/executive's recommendations. Most importantly, the gov't doesn't need to last a long time. As I noted, finances are so bad for a lot of teachers that another three-four weeks is all it will take to bankrupt a small but not-too-small percentage of the membership. Those teachers are not going down without a fight and if they feel it was the union that failed them the results could be problematic for the BCTF.

      Delete
    3. There would only be a partial lockout if the teachers return to limited job action. Without that I highly doubt the government would do anything of the sort.

      Delete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have listened to Glen Hansman's comments placed insensitively as "counterpoint" to Tara's on CBC radio. I've watched video clips from both sides, from teachers, and parents and read what I can of the details of our agreement for ratification. I found out that Vince Ready pushed hard for a deal with a threat that the momentum would lost because he had to fly back east to Toronto on Tuesday for a few days. My soccer friends have asked me if it's a good deal. My wife knows that the money put into this deal comes almost entirely from the money saved by not paying teachers on picket lines.
    Then my 12 year-old son asked me a question that has both bothered me and helped me to decide which way I will vote.
    He asked, "So dad, if we go back to school will there still be (like) thirty kids and EA's coming in and out of my class all the time?"
    Thank you Tara for being a voice that reflects the long term reason why we stand up for public education. The Committee should be recommending that we go back to work and vote "no" so that our chance of having the better working conditions we had prior to 2002 can exist for our future grads, including my sons.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Class size and composition were the key points that we went out for, and should be the key consideration in deciding to go back (by voting yes). It would be unrealistic to think that in this round of negotiation we would be able to dramatically affect them, but what we did accomplish is the ability to maintain the fight when the clear objective of the government was to gain complete control over class size and composition. We thwarted that attempt, and kept the path open for the court case to run its course. Moreover, we gained clear language in the re-opener clause that the starting point of negotiations will from the stripped 2002 language. That's a big win. In this round, governments starting point was from the current, but ironically non-existant language struck by Justice Griffin. Add to that the thwarting of changes to teacher evaluation, and calendar and hours of work, and I think our bargaining team made a significant accomplishment.

    I don't for a second believe that we made enough gains to "fix" the system, give students the support they deserve, or pay teachers enough to maintain purchasing power. But I do believe that if we vote no, we open the door for big losses. Both in terms of control of the education system, and public support. I'm happy to take our modest gains, live to fight another day, and carry the support we've mobilized for continued pressure to make positive changes to public education. I'll be voting yes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The re-opener clause is a benefit only to the employer as it has been used by them since at least 1992 and, in this particular agreement proposal sets out to limit the ability of the union to use the court decision(s) to set negotiations on class size and composition from the standards and formula set prior to 2002. It is, as a colleague put it, "E80 with lipstick."

      Delete
    2. The "starting point" is useless if it isn't implemented. Government just has to wait us out, which they love to do, because we get no pay increases while that happens. We've had the right to bargain CSC since 2013. Bill 22 actually put it back after two years. The reopener is not a "big win". It is a concession. What we want is if the court puts the language back, to have the language back. With the reopener, if the court puts the language back, we have to bargain the language back. That's less likely then than it would be today. There is not much to lose in this agreement. 10 minutes prep for elementary and $275 in benefit improvements. That's all I see.

      Delete