Delta schools may face a full-scale strike before the end of this school year.
The troubling new development in the ongoing heated contract battle between government and teachers came Wednesday following a Labour Relations Board ruling against the B.C. Teachers' Federation.
The board ruled in favour of the employer and backed the 10 per cent wage cut to teachers who participated in rotating strikes over the past two weeks.
In response to teachers launching the strikes, the B.C. Public School Employers' Association, the body negotiating on behalf of government, fired back with the partial lockout and a pay cut, a move the BCTF described as contradictory, confusing and chaotic.
Following the release of the LRB decision, BCTF president Jim Iker announced rotating strikes would likely continue next week, meaning Delta schools would be shut down for another day for the third week in a row.
Local schools were closed on Monday as well as on Wednesday of last week.
The rotating strike is expected to hit Delta on Thursday of next week.
Things could escalate as teachers will vote next Monday and Tuesday on ramping up their job action to a full-scale strike, which would occur the following week.
Iker lamented the government's lack of movement, despite teachers lowering
their salary demand.
"They have not moved on the salary offer tabled back in April. And to date, they have not put a single dollar onto the bargaining table to ensure class size limits, class composition guarantees and minimum levels of specialist teachers into the collective agreement," he said.
"Their current offer would see teachers take two more years of zeros after just coming off two years of legislated zeros. Teachers last got a raise in July 2010."
Saying there was still time for government to avert a full-blown strike, Iker reiterated that teachers don't take job action lightly.
Delta Teachers' Association president Paul Steer said it doesn't have to come to a strike and, even now, there is still the ability to negotiate rather than fight.
In response to the BCTF's possible escalation of job action, Education Minister Peter Fassbender said it doesn't change the government's resolve to get an agreement by the end of June.
He said a full-scale strike is only going to keep more students out of their classrooms, create more disruption for parents, while teachers and support workers will lose even more in wages.
