Province should legislate teachers back to work as soon as possible

Another sensational South Okanagan summer filled with beautiful blues skies and hot weather, the brutal reality that summer is almost over and 500,000 school children in this province’s public education system wouldn’t be returning to classrooms hit home hard on Tuesday.

There was slight room for optimism late last week when the negotiating from the British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) and the province’s negotiating team agreed to meet with acclaimed mediator Vince Ready.

However, that optimism was quickly dashed when Ready walked out of the room on Saturday afternoon claiming the sides were too far apart for him to make any real difference.

So the strike that started two weeks before the end of last year’s school year and disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of students and parents continues into early September with no end in sight.

This is truly tragic news.

While neither side will admit it, there was no real attempt by the BCTF or provincial government to engage in meaningful negotiations over the summer months.

Education Minister Peter Fassbender continues to insist there will not be any deal until the BCTF tables a proposal that is “more realistic” and in line with what other public sector unions have received.

The BCTF remains steadfast they will not back down on their demands for a significant pay increase and action to address major concerns over class size and composition.

Fassbender has also made it clear that the provincial government has no intention of legislating more than 40,000 members of the BCTF back to work. The victims, of course, are 500,000 children who are left wondering when they will be returning to the classroom.

Hundreds of thousands of parents are also left having to find family members, hired help or programs to take care of their children.

With neither side willing to budge at all or enter into meaningful negotiations, it’s time for the province to legislate teachers back to the classroom. None of the existing problems between the warring parties will be solved, but at least children can return to where they belong in the classroom and they will no longer be allowed to be used as pawns in a bitter chess game that looks like it will never end.