Susan Lambert is right.The president of the BC Teachers’ Federation is right to mock the name of the back-to-work legislation — the Education Improvement Act — with its laughably transparent spin.She’s right when she notes the Ministry of Education has increased class size over the years, lessening the quality of education.She is right when she states the B.C. government was prepared even during negotiations to legislate an end to the strike.She’s wrong, or at least hypocritical, when she characterizes the government as a bully. Minister George Abbott has been more patient than most of his predecessors — and the BCTF does not hesitate to throw around its own considerable power.As to legislating BCTF members back to work, that has happened every time within recent memory except in 1998.Then, as columnist Vaughn Palmer reminds us, Glen Clark, Adrian Dix and the NDP hijacked the bargaining process and imposed a deal on B.C.’s elected school trustees that put a serious dent in the province’s finances.That contract, short on salary increases and long on benefits, was subsequently disowned by many BCTF members and the NDP.If the BCTF paused from bashing the government to look in a mirror, it would realize its standard “negotiating” model is passé and ineffective.By throwing a mountain of stuff at the wall — hoping as much as possible will stick — and then stubbornly sticking to most of its demands, the union ensures it will be forced back to work.All this while trying to position itself as respectful.The BCTF, every bit as cynical and entrenched as the government, is not being respectful to students or their parents.If it were, it would have bargained for classroom improvements and better education without salary and benefit demands B.C. taxpayers could never afford.Dropping three benefit demands in January while leaving everything else on the table was just a cynical public relations ploy.editor@comoxvalleyrecord.com
