YCL Vancouver: Complete Solidarity With BC Teachers!

Statement from the Young Communist League-Vancouver, June 5, 2014

 There has been a troubling current in the student movement's response to the current labour dispute between the British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) and the BC Liberal government, most obvious in the June 4th "BC Student Walkout for Students." Many students view themselves as caught in middle of a battle between equally powerful and dangerous camps, when in reality nothing could be further from the truth! In every set of collective bargaining talks between the BCTF and the government since the Liberals took power in 2001, the government has been the aggressor and has made it their explicit mission to curtail and even destroy teachers' bargaining rights.

            Earlier this year their actions were ruled unconstitutional by the BC Supreme Court (and not only in the case of teachers: the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against BC legislation restricting the collective bargaining rights of health care workers in 2007!), and the government is at it again this time around. The fundamental goal of the government and its right wing agenda is to privatize the education system and to privatize health care. In Coquitlam alone, 632 teachers are getting layoff notices. One of the intentions of this act is to initiate bigger classroom sizes with fewer resources.

            Additionally, nearly 200 schools have been shut down as a result of government cuts in education. Therefore, students have fewer schools in their neighbourhood, fewer teachers and fewer resources to help with their education. Students that require more needs and more resources for learning are especially hurt by the cuts because there are fewer resources for them to use and fewer educators in departments for students who require more assistance. BC has been targeted more than any other province in Canada.

The Situation of Youth and Student movement today

Main Political Resolution, 

YCL-LJC Central Committee

March 18th, 2012

Highlights: 

• The danger of war against Syria and Iran and the need for a peaceful resolution by the people themselves, not imperialism.
• Bill 30 is a direct attack on privacy and civil and democratic by the Harper regime
• The Robo-call scandal must increase our resolve to kick-out the Harper government!
• The CFS Day of Action was a step in the right direction, showing youth fight back
• We express our full support to the BC Teachers Strike and the great solidarity actions of BC high school students
• We send our full solidarity to the growing Quebec student strike and must spread the word!

Support BC Teachers: Fight Bill 22!

Statement of YCL BC Provincial Committee

The BC Liberals have proposed legislation that would send BC’s teachers back to work without collective bargaining or the right to strike. This legislation, called Bill 22, threatens the democratic rights of all workers in BC. The Young Communist League of Canada BC Provincial Committee condemns Bill 22 for seeking to terminate the basic rights of working people to bargain collectively and to strike.

Teachers are seeking improvements to public education such as smaller classes and more resources for special needs students. , Under the cynical slogan of “Families First”, The BC Liberals are attacking teachers through slander and threats. In the process, they are aggravating the problems with BC’s public school system and hindering the students who depend upon it for their education. Bill 22 uses a “cooling off period” and sham “mediation” as tools in the Liberal’s ongoing union busting efforts. Violations of the imposed restrictions being placed on teachers’ right to strike will result in millions of dollars in fines, a clearly punitive action on the part of a government.

The Young Communist League supports the struggle of the BC Teachers’ Federation and the efforts of the BC Federation of Labour, local labour councils, and others to stand strong against this anti-democratic, anti-worker legislation. We also applaud the impressive and inspiring actions of BC high school students in staging walkouts and rallying to support high quality public education.

The alternative to high quality public education is private education. The spread of private schools would mean a two-tier education system. One tier of high quality education for those who can pay the high cost of tuition fees, and another insufficiently funded tier for the majority of British Columbians.

The BC Liberal government’s time in power has been disastrous for working people, youth, and students in this province. This is the government of big business carrying out the interests of the socio-economic class they represent.

The attack on unions and on public services is part of the broader offensive on working peoples’ working conditions and living standards aimed at saving the capitalist system its current crisis by making working people pay for a situation they did not create. Youth and students should fight to stop Bill 22, to defeat the Liberal government, and ultimately to replace the capitalist system with one in which working people themselves will set the priorities for our communities and teachers and students will be valued, not criminalized and demonized. We call that system socialism.

Teachers will withdraw services to protest Bill 22, worsening classroom conditions

BCTF News Release

Monday, March 5, teachers across British Columbia will begin a legal three-day full-scale withdrawal of services, as permitted under the Labour Relations Board interim essential services order. At 6:00 a.m. today, the BCTF issued notice of the escalation to the BC Public School Employers’ Association.
This step follows a province-wide vote conducted February 28 and 29, 2012, in which 87% of teachers voted “yes” to escalating job action from the limited “teach only” campaign that began last September. In all, 32,209 teachers voted, of whom 27,946 said “yes.”

In a morning news conference, BCTF President Susan Lambert noted that the 75% turnout and 87% yes vote demonstrate to the provincial government that “bullying legislation like Bill 22 will not fix a broken relationship.”

An Assault on Collective Bargaining, a Degradation of Justice and an Attack on Youth

Statement of the Communist Party, British Columbia

The Communist Party condemns Bill 22 as an assault on Collective bargaining, a degradation of the judicial system and a threat to democracy in British Columbia. In one stroke this failed and doomed Liberal government has violated the right to negotiate, to withdraw labour, and to exercise the franchise of citizenship in a democratic society. They have changed the meaning of the word “mediate” to “enforcement” and degraded the numerous court victories of the BC Teachers with legislation that is in opposition to the Teachers, the Court decisions, their own Labour Board, any sense of human decency and most important of all the quality of life and education of BC children. Twice the Supreme Court has ruled anti-worker legislation of this government illegal.

Our view: the youth and student struggle now

Main Political Resolution, 

YCL-LJC Central Committee

Jan. 15th, 2012

Since our last Central Committee, we are still being told by politicians and the corporate media that the economic crisis is over.  At the same time, the crisis is blamed for aggressive budget cut-backs.

The economic crisis of capitalism is the main fact dominating the struggle of the youth and students today The latest Euro-zone sovereign debt crisis is a continuation of that crisis.

The Eurozone crisis: more crisis of capitalism

The sovereign debt crisis forcefully imploded across the European Union over the past several months. It began with the capitalist governments of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain suddenly announcing they could not refinance their national debt to the Banks (ie. the country is bankrupt). Consequently, they experienced a major downgrading of there credit ratings by finance capital, further aggravating the situation. Even France‘s credit rating has just been downgraded.

The crisis was not simply sparked by the quantitative amount debt of these countries. Because of the domination of banking and financial capital (that is non-value producing or parasitic) and its ever-greater concentration and centralization within the interconnected Eurozone, when a country like Greece defaulted there was a qualitative change: a domino-effect of defaulting (and a resulting political crisis; for example, in Italy the Berlusconi was suddenly replaced by high level administrators or “technocrats.”)

Nobody has a crystal ball, but the future of the entire EU is being drawn into question. The EU is now in a recession that has even hit Germany.  Can it be confidently said that Canada is immune? Not at all.