About FPSE
The Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC is the provincial voice for faculty and staff in BC teaching universities, colleges and institutes, and in private sector institutions. FPSE member locals, represented by Presidents' Council and the Executive, represent over 10,000 faculty and staff at 18 public and 4 private sector institutions.
“Free collective bargaining has been virtually non-existent under the BC Liberals,” Oliver noted. “In their first four years in office they resorted to contract ripping instead of contract signing. Not only were collective agreements ignored, signed contracts were essentially vetoed by legislative measures that stripped agreements of long-standing provisions. More recently, the government has used bargaining mandates to stifle the bargaining process. In the last provincial budget they unilaterally announced zero mandates for all provincial public sector contracts,” Oliver added.
“This legislation is just another example of the BC Liberals’ low tolerance for meaningful collective bargaining. However, the Premier and his Cabinet colleagues might want to re-read the June 2007 Supreme Court of Canada decision that criticized the BC government’s disregard for the bargaining process. Hopefully that decision and concerted pressure from public sector unions will be enough to get Premier Campbell to acknowledge once and for all that free collective bargaining is long overdue in the province,” Oliver concluded.