In the head-to-head battle between this province’s teachers and the B.C. Liberals, the government appears to have blinked first.

After days of bombast about refusing to negotiate while teachers carried on an “illegal strike,” Vince Ready, the default mediator for major labour disputes in the province, has been appointed to “facilitate talks.” With his infamously pink-faced, drunk driver’s mug shot plastered all across B.C., on picket signs and websites in solidarity with the union, the premier’s “law-and-order” tough talk didn’t wash with anyone.

Gordon Campbell and the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) are at the centre of a showdown between labour and this province’s corporate-backed government. For a week and a half, since the imposition of Bill 12, teachers have been defying an unjust law and winning major support from organized labour and the general public.

The legislation, which has spawned the Hollywood-riffing slogan “Kill Bill 12,” consisted of a three-year wage freeze, and addressed none of the BCTF’s bargaining concerns, such as ballooning class sizes as well as class composition. It was rammed through on the basis of earlier legislation that has subjected teachers to “essential service” status, essentially stripping them of their legal right to strike.

After hiding for many days behind the woefully incompetent and media-illiterate labour minister Mike de Jong, Campbell emerged with a single, feeble talking-point with which to fight the growing public support for the union: That the teachers had to obey the rushed and illegal legislation crammed through in bad faith by his government because democracy is based on the rule of law. To reiterate this point, Justice Wally Oppal — a popular Liberal recruit — was paraded in front of news cameras parroting the party line.

But even for a man who has been arrested for committing a potentially deadly crime while holding the province’s top office, Campbell’s appeal to the sanctity of the rule of law is patently and transparently disingenuous and without wings: Not only did Campbell, in his first term, tear up legal collective agreements with public sector unions as well as holding an illegal and illegitimate referendum on Native land rights plainly outside of provincial jurisdiction, but the very legislation which he calls on teachers to respect is in contravention of international labour laws to which Canada is a signatory.

The close to 40,000 teachers remain determined, buoyed by province-wide labour and community mobilizations of solidarity; Campbell and the B.C. Liberals, fresh off re-election and with the considerable advantage of big media’s sympathies, have ramped up their efforts to vilify the teachers and, failing that, to crush them through the courts.

This morning, public sector workers are expected to shut down a number of services in the B.C. interior’s Kootenays region, joining teachers for rallies in Trail and Cranbrook, among other towns. These actions come a day after a rally and CUPE walkout in Prince George, the economic hub of northern B.C. On Monday, a mass rally at the provincial legislature kicked off a week of solidarity actions coordinated by the B.C. Federation of Labour. Despite all efforts by “respectable politicians” across the spectrum to deny it — and of postmodern academics to obfuscate it out of existence — the class struggle has emerged through all the platitudes and into plain sight.

The struggle was on display Monday. Despite persistent rain, the mood of demonstrators in the provincial capital was defiant, if not upbeat. Almost 20,000 turned out to show their support for the latest round of resistance to the Campbell agenda. (Print media estimates ranged from eight to 15 thousand, with Canada’s “newspaper of record,” The Globe and Mail, managing to offer two varying crowd sizes in yesterday’s issue).

While Victoria workers shut down the city and rallied at the legislature, Campbell waded into the forefront of the dispute after days of leaving the PR to de Jong. The premier — mocked at the rally by his own grinning mug on dozens of signs reading “drunk with power” and “what a real law breaker looks like” — held a press conference in which he announced that the courts were appointing a special prosecutor to explore charges of criminal contempt against the BCTF. Last Thursday, the court ordered the union’s assets frozen, preventing, among other things, strike pay of $50/day from being paid to teachers.

The background to this latest mobilization of thousands against the Campbell government is two-fold: The sustained attack on the province’s labour movement and the related efforts to undermine public education and weaken a solid, and, in relative terms at least, militant union. The B.C. teachers’ long record of commitment to international solidarity and other progressive causes, in addition to its big money campaigns against the Liberal government, mark it for especially vindictive treatment.

Also figuring into the dispute has been the provincial government’s abysmal record on the rights of children and the provision of student services. As exponential increases in post-secondary tuitions (following Campbell’s repeal of the previous NDP government’s tuition freeze) put university education out of the reach of many British Columbians, some districts have even had to cut to K to 12 education to four-day school-weeks.

In addition, Campbell’s government has stripped bare the legal protections of children at work in the province, giving British Columbia the dubious honour of enforcing the most relaxed restrictions on child labour in North America. Today, the only legal safety net keeping 12-year-old children in four-day districts from working full-time hours in mines or mills is federal legislation concerning those two industries.

Speakers at the teachers’ rally were largely the usual suspects, the heads of the major public sector unions. Also featured were representatives from Teachers’ Federations from every province and territory in Canada. If the crowd was surprised and heartened by the words of solidarity from Nunavut, they were electrified by the words of Thulas Nxesi of the South African Democratic Teachers Union:

    We are appalled at the actions of your government in unilaterally imposing contracts, in stripping away hard won conditions of service, in seeking to outlaw basic labour rights, and in drastically reducing the teaching force. The conditions you describe are reminiscent of those experienced by South African teachers under the Apartheid government.

A message from Mexican teachers pledged support and reported on a demonstration at the Canadian embassy. The cross-country and international solidarity drove home for many the stakes involved in this fight with the Campbell government.

In addition to mass rallies and statements, solidarity has been expressed in myriad ways. The B.C. public has, largely, been immune to the barrage of right-wing talk jocks and print editorials. Their sentiments have been expressed through honking, by bringing donuts and home-baked cookies to the picket lines, and even by donating hard cash. The day after the Supreme Court’s ruling ending the $50 daily strike pay, one teacher reported that a complete stranger came to the line and handed over a red MacKenzie King to picketers.

The teachers’ fight may well be the most critical one yet with the Campbell government. It’s no exaggeration to say that working people around the world are watching for the results with anticipation. And there is no doubt that this province’s educators are determined to teach Gordon Campbell a lesson.

Charles Demers

Charles Demers

Charles Demers is an author, comedian, and political activist, as well as a regular performer on CBC Radio One’s The Debaters, and co-host of Citytv’s comedic panel show The CityNews List...