Important Notice for VSB Members – BCTF Job Action

Welcome back. I hope you and your family had a wonderful summer. As you are probably aware the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation has announced it will commence Phase 1 of its job action starting Tuesday September 6th to back up their bargaining proposals. Phase 1 of job action means that teachers will not be performing administrative tasks such as filling out forms, collecting data, meeting with principals or other administrators, supervising on playgrounds, or writing report cards.

In support of the BCTF's job action, CUPE 15 members should not perform any of the duties normally performed by teachers. You should continue to carry out the duties you normally perform at your worksite. In addition you should not increase the work you perform in order to make up for work not being performed by BCTF members.

Last week I wrote to the Superintendent/CEO of the Vancouver School Board advising him that we would be giving these instructions to you in response to the BCTF job action.

If you are asked to perform any duties normally performed by teachers and these duties are not part of your normal work duties, please contact our union office. Miriam Pulisfer, CUPE 15 Vice President will be working from our office this week to specifically deal with issues emerging from this job action. It would be helpful for us if you could fully document any instructions by the employer to perform any duties normally performed by teachers.

It is also important to note that CUPE 15 members have the right to refuse to do this work under the Labour Relations Code. Specifically, Section 68(2) states: “An employer must not require any person who works at a place of operations in respect of which the strike or lockout is taking place to perform any work of an employee in the bargaining unit that is on strike or is locked out without the consent of the person.”

The next few days will no doubt be stressful for everyone in the Vancouver school system and in fact at every school district in the province. This situation is going to be very fluid so we will keep you posted on any developments as best as we can.

In solidarity,
Paul Faoro
President