BRITISH COLUMBIA

Jeinrich’s attack

on boards draws
educators fire

Continued from page 1
trustees from the Lower Mainland’s nine
school districts, called on Heinrich Nov. 15
“to respond to the clear and growing desire
of British Columbians that the restraint
program in education end forthwith...” -

Specifically, the branch adopted a resolu-
tion which demanded the minister set the
upcoming budgets “at at least the 1984 ser-
vice levels, plus an inflation factor (emphasis
original).”

The resolution further demanded “that
the trustees’ authority and responsibility to
set a budget appropriate to district
needs — along with the authority to tax
accordingly — be restored to boards July,
1985.”

The latter is a key bone of contention
between trustees and the government,
which, when the cutbacks were introduced
in 1982, moved almost immediately to rob
school boards of their powers to tax indus-
trial and commerical properties. For school
districts in heavily-industrialized areas, the
loss of taxing powers meant the loss of a
large portion of school revenues; for all dis-
tricts, it meant the loss of autonomy.

_ “Weare feeling frustrated by our reduced
autonomy and authority to act. We resent
this emasculation and the subsequent per-
ceived lack of accountability to our local
electors and taxpayers,” said Coquitlam
board chairman Jon Taylor, also president
of the BCSTA Metro Branch. He fingered
several pieces of Social Credit legislation,
including the Education Interim Finance
Act, the Public Sector Restraint Act and the
Compensation Stabilization Program.

The Metro Branch blames those devel-
opments for destroying “boards’ incentives
to be cost-effective and educationally pro-
active,” for undermining negotiations
between school boards and their employees
and for creating “the untenable situation of
being obligated to lay off staff while having
inadequate resources to pay appropriate
severance settlements or to reward the pro-
ductivity of remaining staff.”

“That statement reflected the strong
views of our Coquitlam trustees,” Taylor
told the Tribune. “Although -if you'd
brought this motion up for a vote’a year ago
(among branch members) I doubt if you
would have gotten five votes in favor.”

Although Taylor called the nine-member
Coquitlam board a “politically assertive”
one, he said the community is behind the
board’s strong stance.

A recent six-month survey of Coquitlam
residents by the board found an average
response of 80 per cent who felt “restraint
had gone too far, or far enough.” Even
among those with no children, the response
was 74.6 per cent against the cutbacks, said
Taylor.

John Parks, the Social Credit MLA for
Maillardville-Coquitlam, was booed at a
parents’ meeting Nov. 20 when he attemp-
ted to exonerate the provincial government.
And Taylor said Parks admitted he had
been “inundated” with correspondence
over the school cuts.

Even the Coquitlam Chamber of Com-
merce, while advising the board to “co-
operate” with the province, has also asked
Heinrich to take a “second look at the res-
traint program,” said Taylor.

Taylor does not agree with the term “res-
traint program.”

“Tt is falsely named — this is a cutback

Harry Rankin
on page 5

program. When people see the government
spending $250 million on a new highway in
the Interior, while education is suffering,
they’re not fooled. People see this as an
ideological program.”

Taylor said the Metro Branch had yet to
receive a reply from the minister. But in one
sense, Heinrich already did reply when he
announced the budget figures at a press
conference Nov. 20.

Citing the Coquitlam board in particular,
the education minister said it was an exam-
ple of boards which engage in “noise, pos-
turing, rhetoric” when asking for additional
funds. He said boards which want to
‘“*mount a lobby or protest. . .will not get a
sympathetic ear from me.”

The statement caused an uproar, draw-
ing the fire of teachers and trustees, most
notably BCSTA president Bill Lefeaux-
Valentine and the BCTF’s Clarke.

“It’s an incredible statement for a sup-
posedly democratically-elected minister to
say,” said Clarke.

He noted some 1,500 additional teachers’
jobs will be axed at the current rate, and
observed that some 13 per cent of the
teachers in the Arrow Lakes school
district — a ‘“‘quiet” board by Henrich’s
definition — is slated for layoffs.

“It’s blackmail,” said Vancouver school
trustee Phil Rankin. “Those districts that
managed to save people’s jobs in the past
are being singled out this time.

“When the forest companies lobby the
provincial government, it’s called helpful
input from the community; but for school
boards, it appears lobbying has become a
pejorative term, in Victoria’s view,” he
observed.

“The minister has alternately chastized or
complimented boards. This talk about
‘good boards and bad boards’ is meant to
be divisive, and we will not be a part of that
divisiveness,” said fellow trustee Pauline
Weinstein.

Heinrich’s budgetary figures show Van-
couver facing a $5.3-million shortfall. That
cutback is $1 million less than the board had
anticipated, but it sitll means a minimum of
232 jobs to be axed, said Weinstein.

That’s the best-case scenario; taking into
account a modest three-per cent inflation
rate yearly, 434 more positions will have to
be cut by June, 1985, she estimated.

Weinstein, whose Committee of Progres-
sive Electors civic group captured a five-seat
majority on the nine-member board Nov.
17, predicted Vancouver residents will
organize against further cutbacks.

“We're certain that when the Vancouver
community understands the effects of these
cutbacks, there’ll be delegations to the
board, and we’ll take action based on what
they ask,” Weinstein pledged.

Taylor said the Coquitlam school board
has gone through the “peaceful” process,
travelling to Victoria and “sitting down to
tea” with ministry officials. :

“Then we'd get a polite letter from the
ministry thanking us for our input, while
failing to acknowledge any of the problems
we raised,” Taylor related.

He estimated Heinrich made his contro-
versial statement because the BCSTA reso-
lutions “had gotten through to him. I think
he was willing to risk making his statements
..-because (the government) is afraid the
oppositiion to the cutbacks will reverberate
around the province.

But, said Taylor, “Heinrich’s statement
backfired on him.”

“Your’re going to see a lot of dissent after
this — at least in the big metro areas.
ised going to be public uprising over

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 28, 1984

PAT CLARKE...government wants to
punish teachers.

Socred education budget
aims at teachers’ jobs

The education ministry’s latest round of
cutbacks takes dead aim at the jobs and
salaries of public school employees, trustees
and educators charge in the wake of the
most recent budget figures.

Education Minister Jack Heinrich’s pre-
liminary budget figures announced Nov.
19 — the final figures are expected in
January — come when 62 of the province’s
75 school districts have entered arbitration
after failing to reach agreements with the
local teachers associations.

“It’s clear they’ve (ministry officials)
released the figures to drive down the wage
offers,” said Wes Knapp, negotiator for the
B.C. Teachers Federation.

“He (Heinrich) really wants to make
teachers pay for speaking out,” he said.

Knapp said the ministry has handed
boards 23 different budgets since the cut-
backs program began in 1982. When the
final figures come in, after boards have
settled with their teachers, there’s usually a
slight increase in the amount, he observed.

Not everyone in the education commun-
ity is certain that will happen this time. But
many agree the timing of the budget release
seems aimed at teachers, whose arbitrated
settlements must be in by Dec. 31.

From there the final decision rests with
Compensation Stabilization Program
commissioner Ed Peck, who bases his deci-
sions on the “‘ability to pay.”

The minister has said in effect that there
are no wage hikes for teachers,” said Van-
couver trustee Pauline Weinstein, whose
distrct faces a $5.3-million shortfall next
year.

Ina press release announcing its opposi-
tion to the continued application of the
“restraint” program to education, the Met-
ropolitan Branch of the B.C. School Trus-
tees Association charged the ministry’s
underfunding of education “‘is affecting our

PAULINE WEINSTEIN. . .“‘we'lllisten
the.community.”’

districts’ ability to treat employees with
sensitivity and respect they have earned.

Metro Branch president Jon Taylor sa
the Coquitlam school board, which
chairs, is faced with a “Catch-22” situati
Trustees won’t know until Dec. 31 what
arbitrated settlement is, but if any staff
to be laid off, severance notice must be gi
by Nov. 30.

Coquitlam has lost 80 teaching position,
so far, but the district has been able
reduce its workforce through early reti
ment and attrition. But it must cut a min
imum of 100 jobs next year, based on ~
ministry’s allotment, said Taylor. BA.

“The minister has singled out th
boards — such as Coquitlam — forsp
ing up,” said Vancouver trustee Phil R
kin. “They made a decision to pro
teachers’ jobs last time.”

At his news conference to announce |
budget figures, Heinrich told reporters;
have no intention at all of penalizing th
district who have done their job, by capi
lating to those who right now are plead
hardship, if those who are pleading
ship did not tackle the problem when it y
first presented.”

BCTF president Pat Clarke, who ca
the cutbacks the provincial governm
“unemployment creation program,”
that regarding teachers as a group, *
hate us.

““We’ve been well-organized and
ably effective in voicing our opposition t
the cutbacks,” said Clarke.

Teachers were instrumental in organi
the defeat of the Socreds in 1972, he ne
And, during the Solidarity actions
November, teachers walked out and “
not collapse as (the government) expecti

“They perceive teachers as the heart
that action. In fact, many other groups ¥
just as strongly involved. But teachers:
perceived that way.”

The minister of education should
resign over his threats of financial retri-
bution against “‘political” school boards,
delegates to the Vancouver and District
Labor Council said Nov. 20.

The VDLC meeting unanimously
adopted a resolution demanding Jack
Heinrich’s resignation following — his
remarks earlier that day that “noisy”
school boards would not receive a favor-
able hearing is they applied for addi-
tional funding.

“When the Coquitlam board went to
the people and said that the govern-
ment’s education restraint policies were

Resignation demanded

wrong, the minister slapped the board
members on the wrist and said they'd
$200,000 less,” said Colleen Jordan
the Canadian Union of Public Emplo’

“It’s absolutely horrendous — board!
have got to say, ‘We won’t take this
anymore’,” she said.

The resolution adopted termed H
rich’s statements “totally unacceptable
and stated these confirmed “this total dis
regard for the rights and autonomy 0}
local boards. Fe

“Therefore the VDLC demands th
resignation of Education Minister Jz
Heinrich,” delegates agreed. x

ER
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