On March 18, 2020, the ÂSoutheast Kootenay Principals’ and Vice Principals’ Association applied to the Labour Relations Board for certification to be the Âexclusive bargaining agent for all principals, vice-principals and district principals employed in the Southeast Kootenay School District.
The application failed, but whether or not the situation is a tempest in a teacup or a sign of a gathering storm remains to be seen. B.C.’s principals and vice-principals are the only 91Ô´´ school administrators who do not have the right to collective Ârepresentation for negotiation.
The application to the Labour Relations Board by the Southeast Kootenay principals and vice-principals was something that has not happened before. To understand what brought this about requires an understanding of B.C. school district labour relations issues dating back 34 years or so. Back then, local teachers and principals bargained with their individual school districts together.
In 1987, the provincial Social Credit government, two years after Bill Vander Zalm became premier, tabled Bills 19 and 20.
These significant changes to B.C.’s labour legislation incorporated teachers into mainstream labour relations regulation, allowed the B.C. Teachers’ ÂFederation to gain status as a powerful 44,000-member trade union, provided a clear, though limited, right to teacher strikes and lockouts, and broadened the scope of negotiable matters.
The scope of teacher Âbargaining was also broadened to include salary and working conditions.
However, directors, Âprincipals and vice-principals were excluded from this system and, therefore, were no longer able to negotiate alongside teachers.
With principals and vice-principals out of the teacher bargaining unit, principals and vice-principals became part of the “management structures” in school districts, with virtually no bargaining power when it came to their own contracts.
Since that time, the BCTF has been highly successful in improving the working conditions of teachers. Hours of work, days in session, class size and composition were all bargained into teacher contracts along with the right to strike, ironclad job security and the development of automatic and significant Âprotections against “less than satisfactory” assessments.
Meanwhile, principals saw no such restrictions on the Âemployer’s expectation of them.
Quite the contrary.
Boards knew that, and as far as contract bargaining was concerned, principals and vice-principals were essentially left out in the cold.
Subsequently, over the years, the compensation gap between teachers and principals has Ânarrowed in most districts.
In the Southeast Kootenay School District, for example, the highest-paid teacher with a master’s degree, depending on the location of the school, draws total compensation of $92,978 to $97,693, while the lowest-paid principal (master’s degree required) draws $108,000.
Other issues, like salary placement in accordance with the B.C. Public School ÂEmployers Association’s standards on their provincial grid, maternity leave and short-term disability, were not included in principals and vice-principals’ contracts in many districts.
The certification Âapplication by the Southeast Kootenay Principals’ and Vice Principals’ Association follows more than six years of advocacy by the B.C. Principals’ and Vice Principals’ Association to establish a Âprovincial negotiation table to represent B.C.’s school leaders.
In some provinces — for example, Alberta and Saskatchewan — principals and vice-principals are part of the same bargaining unit as teachers and a single collective agreement covers teachers, principals and vice-principals.
The Southeast Kootenay ÂPrincipals’ and Vice ÂPrincipals’ Association asked for the Âlanguage of members’ personal services contracts to be restored to the original language of the master district contract, which had been written collaboratively in 2013 and did apparently include considerations such as maternity leave.
But the Southeast Kootenay school board declined.
Not good enough, Âaccording to Darren Danyluk, Âprincipal of David Thompson ÂSecondary School in Invermere and Âspokesman for the B.C. ÂPrincipals’ and Vice-Principals Association.
Danyluk said one example of inequity is that principals’ and vice-principals’ contracts in the Southeast Kootenay district don’t include maternity-leave provisions. “Many new vice-principals are young women: What happens to them when they decide to start a family?”
Danyluk added: “Members in some districts are presented with employment contracts that have clauses arbitrarily Ârewritten or removed by the Âdistrict, and the members are told that they can choose to sign, or choose not to sign and move on from the role. That doesn’t instil trust, or provide any sense of employment stability for those school leaders.”
When Ernest Hemingway described the warning of an approaching thunderstorm as a cloud “no bigger than a man’s hand,” he might have been describing the first attempt to find shelter under the labour relations code by the 34 members of the South Kootenay Principals’ and Vice Principals’ Association.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent who, back in the 1970s, as a school principal, successfully negotiated the teacher association (of which he was a member) contract in his district.
