Results released late Wednesday showed that of 32,209 votes cast, 27,946 teachers — or 87 per cent — support escalating their limited job action to a full-scale walkout.
Since September, teachers have been skipping administrative tasks in an attempt to get the province to budge on contract demands. The teachers, who have been without a contract since June, have refused to meet with administrators, supervise recess or fill out report cards.
The teachers federation has asked for a 15 per cent wage increase and improved benefits.
The provincial government says that can't happen under its so-called "net-zero" mandate, in which public-sector workers can't receive pay increases unless the added costs are offset by concessions elsewhere in a contract.
On Tuesday, the B.C. Labour Relations Board ruled that teachers were allowed to take an initial three-day strike, and then one day per week afterwards, as long as parents were given two days notice. That means job action could take place as soon as next week.
The Vancouver School Board had been warning parents to be prepared for a strike.
If teachers do walk off the job, the school board said it won't necessarily be closing schools, but officials said there won't be enough supervisors to look after all the students.
Spokesman Kurt Heinrich said parents should have an alternative child-care plan in place.
"We are not going to turn a child away and risk their safety — that is not going to happen," he said. "We are strongly encouraging parents to please, where possible, make sure that they are looking at alternative arrangements."
'It'll be a real struggle'
Parents with children at Sir Wilfred Grenfell Elementary School expressed concern and frustration about a possible strike.
"It would affect me," one woman told CBC News. "I'm a student, single mother — I'm just hoping that they don't go on strike," she said. "It means having to go looking elsewhere for child care, because I have after-school programs myself. I think it'll be a real struggle."
"It is really an inconvenience, but I support teachers," said one father.
Most child-care centres in the Vancouver area said expanded operating hours will only be open to parents with children already attending the facility. The YMCA, which hosts half of its child-care programs in public schools, said it will be scrambling for a new home if teachers walk off the job.
In the Central Okanagan, school board chair Rolli Cacchioni said contingency plans are in place.
"Part of the plan was to appeal to parents to have them keep the students at home, because we could not provide instruction obviously, and so it would just be a matter of supervision."
'Drop the rhetoric'
In another development, Education Minister George Abbott is promising the government won't ram through its teachers contract legislation, despite the strike threat.
The strike-banning legislation — which imposes a cooling off period that would end any job action until Aug. 31 — is not expected to be passed until the end of next week.
Abbott said he's concerned about a walkout, but he hopes the government's approach will minimize any impact on the school system.
"I hope the teachers' union will drop the rhetoric and help us move forward. I'm hoping that cooler heads will prevail and that people will engage in the very meaningful mediation process that has been set out in this bill," he said.
"I also hope that, for the first time in a long time, we'll be able to get the kind of engagement that produces an agreement among the adults in the room so that kids in the classroom benefit."
Abbott took to Twitter on Wednesday to defend the legislation, but was deluged with messages from angry teachers who accused him of bullying tactics and hypocrisy.
Meanwhile, B.C. students are planning their own walkout Friday in support of teachers.
Original Article
Source: CBC
Author: cbc
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