((Ital precede)) Negotiations and love songs Are often mistaken for one and the same.- Paul Simon "Train in the Distance"
((Drop cap))
Relationships can be difficult. I understand that. They take negotiation, compromise and more than a little humility if they're to be successful. And some partners, it seems, don't want to try that. They enjoy a fiery, combative partnership that seems to thrive on conflict.
I'm thinking that the provincial government and the B.C. Teachers' Federation (BCTF) fall into that second category. Call me jaded and cynical or just old and crotchety, but it baffles me that every time we teachers and the government sit down to negotiate a contract, it has to come to a pissing match.
Since the government-mandated provincial bargaining in 1994, teachers had not been able to come to a negotiated settlement until our last round in 2005-'06. And that "negotiated" settlement was really the result of an illegal strike that the teachers held in the fall of 2005 and a mediated settlement that neither side had the option to reject.
Maybe I'm just naïve. Maybe this is the way that labour negotiations have to work, but it seems to me that there's a whole industry being sustained through these "crises." Lots of high-priced help on both the government's and the union's side seem to enjoy stoking these fires of discontent.
Someone once told me that in any dysfunctional relationship, each side can assume 30 per cent of the responsibility for the problems and the other 40 per cent percent is open to debate. I think that the government's agent BCPSEA (B.C. Public School Employers' Association) can claim most of that 40 per cent. They are being obstinate and seem to be coming to the table with nothing.
If the BCTF has to take any blame it is, from my point of view, in being a little too coy. Lots of the chattering from pundits suggests that teachers don't care about students, and the union counters that its mandate is to protect public education.
Hogwash on both counts. Teachers do care deeply about students and demonstrate that every day in their classrooms. They are professional, they work extra hours, and they spend their own money to subsidize the system. The union wraps itself in this goodwill and tries to present itself as the only body that cares about public education. For the union to suggest that the government doesn't care about public education is disingenuous, and I think that depiction takes away from the union's case.
I pay my union dues for one purpose: to protect my interests - not the students' or the taxpayers'. Fortunately, many times there's overlap. If the union is trying to negotiate class-size guarantees, there is a benefit to students. From a public relations perspective, of course, it's easier for the union to say that they're doing all this for the kids, but the union's motive better be because it improves my working conditions. I wish they'd cut the righteous tone, stop playing the martyr, and just say that they're working for teachers.
Who knows where this latest crisis will end. We do know, though, that this arranged marriage between the government and the teachers' union can't be annulled. Although it seems to be a quarrel every time we communicate, we have to live together. The only thing we can hope is that sooner or later both sides will stop and listen to one another.
