Multimedia
Audio
Video
Photo

Student Walkout in BC

vieuxcmaq, Tuesday, January 15, 2002 - 12:00

Hoffman Tyler (protestmedic@yahoo.com)

Student walk-out spreding aross British Columbia!

Student Walk out Information spreading cross canada! On January 12, 2002
Student pushes for peers to walk out if B.C. teachers' dispute continues
VANCOUVER (CP) -- A student in northern British Columbia is rallying support for a one-day student walkout across the province Jan. 23 if the teachers' labour dispute isn't resolved by then.
Andrew Tylosky's plan is taking shape as the 45,000-member B.C. Teachers' Federation seeks to escalate its current job action.

The Fort St. John Grade 11 student is sending e-mails to students that he says are spreading "like wildfire," and faxing newsrooms to get his message out.And his buddys are helping him spread it all across canada with posting headlines of schools that are protest.Like the Protest At Walnut Grove Secondary School,where they will protest all week for the teacher!
"I'm sure that if the labour dispute isn't resolved before (Jan. 23) we will have thousands upon hundreds of thousands of students walking out," said Tylosky, who attends North Peace secondary school.
On Monday, teachers stopped volunteering in extracurricular activities such as school sports, music, drama, student councils and before- and after-school help with classwork.
It's the second phase in a job action that began in November when teachers withdrew so-called administrative services, such as supervising students, meeting parents outside class hours and writing report cards.
Essential-service legislation recently passed by the new B.C. Liberal government makes a full strike by teachers more difficult.
But the B.C. Teachers' Federation will be going back to the Labour Relations Board later this week or early next week to inquire about further job action that could include rotating walkouts, federation president David Chudnovsky said Tuesday.
"We'll be talking about more traditional strike action," Chudnovsky said.
A possible legislated settlement to the dispute necessitates the move, he said.
Tylosky said the current job action means students who need extra assistance from teachers to prepare for exams won't be getting it.
He said he chose Jan. 23 for the student walkout because that's the last day of classes at his school, two weeks before exams are to begin there.
"As students we're upset ... that the bargaining parties haven't been able to come to a decision yet," he said.
If the students' one-day walkout doesn't work, Tylosky said he's calling on students to start refusing homework if there's no resolution by February.
Some students in a Kamloops-area school jumped the gun and walked out of class briefly Tuesday.
Terry Sullivan, superintendent of the Kamloops-Thompson school district, said about 40 per cent of the students at Logan Lake secondary left to protest the teachers' move to stop extracurricular activities. They returned a short time later.
Teachers are asking for a 22 per cent wage hike over three years but the bargaining agent for B.C. schools has offered on average 7.5 per cent.
Teachers also say they're fighting to retain small class sizes, which they negotiated in a previous contract, and specialist teachers such as teacher-librarians, counsellors and learning assistants.
Chudnovsky also said Tuesday the teachers' union asked mediator Stephen Kelleher to make non-binding recommendations on 24 secondary issues. He wouldn't detail them, saying he doesn't want to bargain in the media.
Ken Denike, chairman of the B.C. Public School Employers' Association, said there are only six items under consideration -- four from the teachers and two from the employer.
"If they can't come to an agreement on this it serves no purpose to move it to a mediator ... because we think we virtually have an agreement on the table so the (B.C. Teachers' Federation) should either sign off or drop off," said Denike.

AttachmentSize
7322.gif0 bytes


CMAQ: Vie associative


Quebec City collective: no longer exist.

Get involved !

 

Ceci est un média alternatif de publication ouverte. Le collectif CMAQ, qui gère la validation des contributions sur le Indymedia-Québec, n'endosse aucunement les propos et ne juge pas de la véracité des informations. Ce sont les commentaires des Internautes, comme vous, qui servent à évaluer la qualité de l'information. Nous avons néanmoins une Politique éditoriale , qui essentiellement demande que les contributions portent sur une question d'émancipation et ne proviennent pas de médias commerciaux.

This is an alternative media using open publishing. The CMAQ collective, who validates the posts submitted on the Indymedia-Quebec, does not endorse in any way the opinions and statements and does not judge if the information is correct or true. The quality of the information is evaluated by the comments from Internet surfers, like yourself. We nonetheless have an Editorial Policy , which essentially requires that posts be related to questions of emancipation and does not come from a commercial media.