BRITISH COLUMBIA

Teachers’ wage freeze
illegal, court decides

The B.C. Teachers Federation is hailing
an Appeal Court ruling that the so-called

Curtis Directive” is illegal.

BCTF president Pat Clarke said Nov. 21
that many local teachers associations were
forced to settle for no salary increases in
Contract talks with school boards this year
under what has been found to be the “illegal
threat” of fines from provincial Finance
Minister Hugh Curtis.

The Appeal Court ruling, by Justice R.

Anderson, means many teacher associa-
tions may be approaching their boards to
Teopen negotiations or agree to some from
of compensation to overturn zero or low
Wage settlements, Clarke said.

BCTF officials launched the suit in the
Appeal Court following a Supreme Court
decision June 12 by Justice Allan McEachern
upholding the Curtis directive.

_ Curtis issued his directive Apr. 4, stipulat-
ing that no increases be paid teachers for the
1985-86 school year in districts where
layoffs would result from salary hikes
ranted by school trustees.

€ directive created an uproar among
teachers and trustees conscientious enough
to see the threat to local board autonomy
implied by the directive.

“What we can see. . .is yet another in the
total removal of autonomy from locally
elected trustees who have guarded the qual-
ity of education since the earliest days of this
Province,” Clarke wrote in a letter to Curtis
Apr. 10,

“What we can also see is yet another
measure by your government to single out
the members of our federation for special
Punitive treatments as you search for some

andy scapegoat to blame for the result of
your unpopular education policies,” Clarke
Stated.

_ The BCTF president said Curtis’ direc-
tive made no change in the government’s
Policy “which is to drive up class sizes to the
levels of more than 10 years ago.”

In his Nov. 21 ruling Anderson agreed
with the argument that the directive
infringed on local board autonomy.

_ Finding that the directive, made by Cur-
Us under the Finance Administration Act,
Contravened sections of the School Act, Jus-
tice Anderson stated that, “The Legislature,
by €nacting the School Act, conferred
'mportant statutory rights on school

Tds, teachers and the residents in each
School district.”

these included, he noted, the right of
Tesidents “to have the ‘quality of education’

and educational policy determined by
locally-elected trustees,” while school boards
have the power “to determine the extent of
‘teacher layoffs’ and to fix teachers’ salaries
in accordance with the collective bargaining
process outlined in the School Act.

“Teachers were given the right to have
their salaries determined by the collective
bargaining and arbitration process outlined
in the School Act,” Anderson wrote.

In delving into the background of the
education financing crisis, Justice Anderson
observed that, ““The combined effect of bare
bones budgets and the directive had a
serious effect on (contract negotiations) as
the ability of the school districts to pay
normal or contractual incremental increases
to most teachers by laying off junior
teachers was practically foreclosed.

‘““As a consequence, most contracts were
settled by agreement or arbitration without
compensation increases,” he noted.

Curtis’ directive forebade paying increases
if these meant layoffs reduced the number
of teachers below a “base” in a given dis-
trict.

But the government’s supposed “no
layoffs’ stance was so much “public rela-
tions,” Clarke charged, noting that ““many
districts were already below that level
because of government restraint measures.”

Justice Anderson’s ruling, in marked dis-
tinction from many court rulings on matters
pertaining to the fightback against the
Socred restraint program, might open the
door to “chaos” if several teacher associa-
tions request their boards to reopen negoti-
ations, Clarke conceded.

But, ne asserted, such an outcome is the
fault of the government. “None of this
would have been necessary if the govern-
ment had acted legally,” he said.

Clarke estimated later that there are
some 20 districts, with approximately
10,000 teachers — about one-third of the
BCTF’s membership — whose contract
settlements are affected by the Appeal court
ruling. There are still three districts with no
settlements, because boards have refused to
pay the yearly experience increments.

The increments are a separate item from
salary increases applying to all members in
the collective agreement. In many districts
—as it has been for the past three
years — no across-the-board salary hikes
were paid.

But the withholding of increments caused
an uproar in several districts this fall, with

PAT CLARKE...BCTF president says
wage talks may be re-opened.

teachers ultimately resorting to work-to-
tule tactics.

Clarke acknowledged that the ruling
does not mean the government will come up
with more money for financially strapped
districts. And, he agreed, the government
may simply move to amend the School Act
and legalize the Curtis directive.

Clarke also had some words of criticism
for the B.C. School Trustees Association.
He said it was “ironic” that the BCTF stood
virtually alone in defending school board
autonomy.

Some districts clearly saw in Curtis’ edict
a means of savings money at the expense of
teachers’ wages, while ignoring the serious
implications of the directive, he said.

In a previous statement Clarke also
hailed the results of the Nov. 16 municipal
elections in 12 districts, stating that school
trustee candidates opposed to the govern-
ment’s cutbacks and attacks on school
board autonomy were successful while
incumbents more acquiescent to the cuts
were defeated.

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Star Wars — the Mulroney government rejects
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Letters

Attack on
Kamloops
jobless
cowardly

Jim Biro, Kamloops, writes: It was
an attack on the poor and unem-
ployed when Bob Metcalfe appeared
before the Kamloops City council on
behalf of the Downtown Business
Association, with association presi-
dent, Barrie Hunt, to argue for more
police foot patrols to discourage
groups of drunks and loiterers, those
who have nowhere to go, from gather-
ing in the downtown area. Under their
plan, the so-called “undesirable ele-
ments” would be picked up by police
and forcibly removed from the busi-
ness district. That would mean an
open season on anyone whose
appearance would not meet the
standard of the downtown business
society. Saying he was “not interested
in those people’s human rights,” Met-
calfe, in a typical reactionary manner,
has attacked the “new constitution
and human rights code,” that he sees
as an obstacle in the way of action
against the have-nots of society.

RCMP Supt. Russ Harding has
already pointed out that police
actions in such cases are “limited”,
unless the loiterers are found commit-
ting a criminal offence, which state-
ment indicates that those so-called
“rubby-dubs” are law abiding citi-
zens, and that the crimes are unem-
ployment, unequal distribution of
wealth, deteriorating social services
— all attributed to a disease-ridden
capitalist society. ;

Because hostels are looking after
the “rubby-dubs” in Kamloops, Met-
calfe, operator of Fabric House on
Victoria St., asked the Business Asso-
ciation to support his plan to move
the Young Men’s Christian Hostel
from Victoria St. to the new correc-
tional facility site in Aberdeen — a
move that was designed to implicate
the unemployed, and the poor, as
criminal elements.

The Downtown Business Associa-
tion is not alone in its attack against
the poor and homeless in Kamloops.
Mel Rothenburger, editor of the Kam-
loops News was quick to echo the con-
cern of the downtown merchants in a
Nov. 7 editorial. A longtime anti-
labor crusader, Rothenburger, ren-
dered his support in a cowardly attack
on the people who are the least able to
fight back.

Neither the Downtown Business
Association nor the editorial offering
look for realistic solutions. Because
the emphasis is on elimination rather
than solving the problem, by any
means available, one is reminded of
Nazi Germany, where millions of
undesirables were eliminated in con-
centration camps, efficiently. Perhaps
a similar solution to their problem
would be acceptable for the likes of
Metcalfe and Rothenburger.

In the meantime, the Kamloops
Unemployed Action Committee is
preparing a brief to city council on
unemployment and its devastating
effect on the unemployed and unlike
the Downtown Business Association,
and Kamloops News, it will offer some
sound solutions.

ee,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 27, 1985 e 3