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actions by government. .

Trustees slam Hewitt plan
for further education cuts

B.C.’s school trustees proved over the
weekend that they are opposed to provin-
cial government cutbacks in education.

Delegates to the annual convention of the
B.C. School Trustees Association, which
represents most of the province’s 75 school

districts, peppered Education Minister Jim

Hewitt with demands that the province
return to boards the power to tax industrial
and commerical properties and called into
question the government's fiscal framework
for funding public education.

Motions passed at the meeting, which ran
April 10-13 in Vancouver, also slammed
Victoria for failing to consult with trustees
over financing and legislation, such as pro-

-posed new Education (Interim) Finance

Act introduced into the legislature April 10.
The trustees also approved granting full
bargaining rights, including the right to

_ Strike, for teachers in a late motion submit-
ted by the BCSTA executive.

_ But despite the fact that more than 60
school districts hae filed preliminary
budgets exceeding the government’s finan-
cial ceilings, the convention showed little
sense of the urgency of the situation. No
plan for fighting Social Credit’s continued

_ restraint, and its legislative attempts to

make homeowners bear the cost of
government cutbacks, was produced.

However, BCSTA president Eric Buckley
— handily re-elected to a second yearly
term — left no doubt in his remarks to
Hewitt that the association opposes the
government’s latest restraint moves.

Buckley, in introducing the minister who
came to address some 400 delegates, told
Hewitt: “I must make it clear that recent
-have left trustees
confused about, government intentions.
Perhaps ‘confused’ is not entirely accurate’

— ‘frustrated’ and ‘somewhat angry’ may
be more appropriate.”

. The BCSTA president Said the introduc-
tion April 10 of Bill 12, which when passed
will force boards to seek additional funding
by increasing the school tax on residential

~ Hewitt acknowledged the
_ transfer to account for salary hikes nego-

properties, will “create a furore at our
AGM and. . .do nothing but add to the con-
flict that all of us should want to avoid.”

Buckley also hit Hewitt’s announcement
April 11, the day of his address, that $19
million would be “robbed” from the
government’s Fund for Excellence in Edu-
cation to pay for teachers’ salary hikes
negotiated last year. He noted that, as with
previous transfers from the government’s
$110-million special fund, the money was
not going to innovative projects but used to
help cover shortfalls in the fiscal frame-
work,

Buckley also reminded the minister of the
BCSTA’s discovery last month that the
government was aware last year that its
fiscal formula would be at least $123 million
short of that required to maintain education
at 1985 levels.

“Trustees can only be confused by
repeated statements from your government
that do not coincide with fact, and by your
continued refusal to consult. with us about
what might actually work to improve the
system,” he said.

In his speech and during the question and
answer period, Hewitt left no doubt that
government cutbacks were still on the
agenda.

Calling the government’s fiscal frame-
work “fair and sound,” Hewitt held out no
hope for additional government funds for
operational budgets, telling the trustees,
“School boards will have the ability to tax
local residential property owners to fund
additional services deemed necessary at the
local school board level.”

On teachers’ salaries, currently under
negotiation in districts across the province,
$19-million

tiated last year, but told trustees there is
definitely no money for salary increases this
year. He extended that to include yearly

‘experience-related increments — a _tradi-

tional item in teachers’ contracts that was
the centre of prolonged disputes last

year — telling boards they could opt out of
the payments if Comipensation Stabilization
Commissioner Ed Peck ruled boards had
no ability to pay the increments.

During the question period Hewitt was
repeatedly told by trustees that the fiscal
framework was inadequate to maintain
current school services, and that boards
reject the solution that they seek additional
funding through hiking taxes on home-
owners. And Buckley told the minister, “I
have heard very little from what you’ve said
today that leads me to think you’ve heard
what we’ve been saying.”

School districts are to receive the final
funding figures from the education ministry
on April 20.

In a strong speech to the convention,
outgoing B.C. Teachers Federation presi-
dent Pat Clarke urged trustees to be “fair
employers in spite of, or in the face of con-
sistent attempts to make you: unfair
employers.

“Specifically, negotiate with teachers,
reach Geals with them, as the Prince George

board has, which say to Victoria, ‘We

believe this is a fair deal for both sides. We
will_not hide behind the CSP. We will not
use Bill 35 (which allows boards to lay off
teachers without regard to seniority) to
exact concessions from teachers...” he
urged.

Resolutions echoed the mood aE dis-
pleasure with the education ministry’s han-
dling of education financing. Delegates
adopted a late motion from the BCSTA
executive deploring “the lack of consulta-

tion regarding Bill 12,” and another calling _

for an independent assessment of education
funding involving interested groups, such as
business and labor.”

A resolution from the Vancouver school
board urging the provincial government to
grant jurisidictional and financial auto-
nomy to school boards and municipal
governments was passed handily.

ERIC BUCKLEY. . .gov’t hasn‘tans
education concerns.

JIM HEWITT. ..hit for homeow
bill.

The real value of monthly welfare rates
has been declining steadily in B.C. Today
these rates are 50 per cent below the pov-
erty line as defined by Statistics Canada.

In Vancouver alone we have 60,000

_ people on welfare plus another 35,000 on
unemployment insurance. That’s almost
one quarter of our population.

B.C.’s minimum wage is $3.65 an hour

($3 an hour for youths under 18), making
it the lowest in Canada. Our rate of unem-
ployment is the second highest in Canada,
and the government has no job creation
program to solve unemployment.
Tens of thousands of B.C. citizens are
working at wages far below the poverty
line. B.C. has an estimated 128,000 poor
children.

These facts are in startling end shocking
contrast to the hundreds of millions of
dollars of public funds being spent on the
glitter and glamor of Expo 86. For what
purpose? To bring short-term super prof-
its to the corporations that dominate the
tourist industry.

On top of that the government cynically
plans to take advantage of the hustle, bus-
tle and bally-hoo connected with Expo 86
(and the temporary creation of several
thousand low wage jobs) to call an election
during Expo in the expectation that it will
be able to fool the people once more into
electing it before the huge Expo debt
becomes public knowledge.

This is life in B.C. — on Vancouver’s
100th birthday.

Did you know that for single persons 25
years and under the welfare shelter allow-
ance is only $200 a month and that the
allowance for food and other necessities is
only $150 a month? For single persons
over 25 the rate is only $25 a month higher.

Welfare rates in B.C. have not gone up
since 1982, but the cost of living from
May, 1982 to September 1985 went up by
14.7 per cent. That is the same as a cut in
welfare'rates. If you are working and get-
ting a reasonable wage, can you imagine

Harry
Rankin

what it must be like trying to pay your
room rent, food, bus fare and other needs
out of $350 a month?

People getting the minimum wage are
not much better off. Their take-home pay
(after deductions for Canada Pension,
income tax, and Unemployment Insu-
rance totalling $50) is still only a little over
$500 a month. How can a man, his wife
and child live on that?

Obviously we need an increase in wel-
fare rates in B.C. They should be raised at
least to the poverty level as defined by

Centenary finds B.C. poor have little to celebraté

Statistics Canada. That means an increase
of 30 to 60 per cent, which is not unreaso-
nable by any standards. For the govern-
ment to say it can’t afford it is the height of
political dishonesty and hypocrisy. Last
year it. gave the big corporations tax
breaks amounting to $1 billion. What it is
actually doing is keeping down welfare
rates so it can give tax breaks and subsidies
to the wealthy.

The minimum wage, too, feats to be
raised, to at least $6 an hour, with no

exemptions. How shameful it is that while
hotel room rates are being doubled, while
the price of restaurant meals is being dras-
tically increased and while food prices are
going up rapidly (all in expectation of rip-
ping off the public during Expo), wages in
the service industry are still at or near the
minimum wage level of $3.65 an hour. No
employer should be allowed to take
advantage of widespread unemployment
to exploit people in this manner. °

But the most important question is that
of jobs, about which the government is

accordingly by the voters and by all th

doing literally nothing. The governi®
should launch a program to build
sands of affordable housing units, 10
of planning to spend $3.2 billion i
another hydro dam at Site C on the P
River so that cheap power, subsidized} Ke
B.C. taxpayers, can be exported 10 4
US.

6

A government requirement that
dian exports be carried in Canadian
and Canadian-crewed ships would
tens of thousands of new jobs in the
building and marine industries. Rest?
the cuts made in health and educatio#
government services would restore JO
several tens of thousands of laid off p
sector employees. We badly need $7,
garbage recycling plants in the LO”
Mainland.

There are no end of work-creation
jects that should be undertaken.
money is there, too, or it can be secured) /
making the big corporations pay theif
share of taxes. All that’s lacking 1°
political will.

The issue of whether the revenues 9
provincial government should be used
create jobs or used to give tax conces
and subsidies to the corporate ©
should be at the centre of the upco
provincial election. Every party ru
candidates should be compelled to
clear stand on this issue and be JU!

who wants jobs. People’s welfare of
porate welfare, that’s the real issue

2. e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 16, 1986

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