In a decision issued yesterday the Labour Relations Board refused to reconsider an earlier decision that had said no to an application to vary the essential services order covering the current phase of the teacher's strike. In November the bargaining agent for public school districts, BCPSEA asked the LRB for an unprecedent order that the BC Teachers' Federation "reimburse" public school districts 15% of the salary and benefits paid to teachers during the course of a form of "teach-only" strike where teachers are not performing duties that the Board has deemd to be non-essential. In the earlier decision the Board ruled that it is not its role when establishing essential services levels to balance the relative bargaining power of the parties and found that BCPSEA had not made a compelling case to justify a variation of the essential services order that had been the product of agreement between the parties. In yesterday's decision a panel of three members of the Board, including the Chair, rejected BCPSEA's application for reconsideration.
Employers and the media are making much of the reconsideration panel's comments that the approach to essential services developed by agreement of the employers and the union is not working because it is not putting equal pressure on the parties. The Board endorses the view that the resolution to this would be for the parties to move to the Board's more traditional approach to the designation of essential services where levels are established and then the appropriate employees are dispatched by the union to provide the essential service.
However that traditional approach was developed out of years of experience in hospital strikes and with the co-operation and collaboration of key labour and management representatives. Even in that sector however, the notion of a "controlled strike" that balances the right of workers to strike with the responsibility to maintain essential services, is seriously flawed: ambulance paramedics were ordered to work overtime in order to maintain the levels that the Board considered essential and 100% of care staff are invariably required to staff hospitals and long term care facilities during a strike. The ambulance paramedics strike had little effect on the employer and went on for months until the government brought it an end because of the impending Olympics.
In previous LRB hearings both BCPSEA and BCTF rejected the application of the health care model to public schools and it remains to be seen what BCPSEA's position will be in the next round of bargaining when the question of essential services designations comes up again.
Employers and the media are making much of the reconsideration panel's comments that the approach to essential services developed by agreement of the employers and the union is not working because it is not putting equal pressure on the parties. The Board endorses the view that the resolution to this would be for the parties to move to the Board's more traditional approach to the designation of essential services where levels are established and then the appropriate employees are dispatched by the union to provide the essential service.
However that traditional approach was developed out of years of experience in hospital strikes and with the co-operation and collaboration of key labour and management representatives. Even in that sector however, the notion of a "controlled strike" that balances the right of workers to strike with the responsibility to maintain essential services, is seriously flawed: ambulance paramedics were ordered to work overtime in order to maintain the levels that the Board considered essential and 100% of care staff are invariably required to staff hospitals and long term care facilities during a strike. The ambulance paramedics strike had little effect on the employer and went on for months until the government brought it an end because of the impending Olympics.
In previous LRB hearings both BCPSEA and BCTF rejected the application of the health care model to public schools and it remains to be seen what BCPSEA's position will be in the next round of bargaining when the question of essential services designations comes up again.
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