The BC Teachers Federation is heading back to the bargaining table this week.

BCTF President Teri Mooring says it is set to resume negotiations on a new contract on Thursday. She says they have dates set up all the way through March as well leaving a lot of opportunity to make progress. “There is hope actually. There is separate money set aside for settling outstanding public sector agreements. We’re not the only ones bargaining right now. And so that’s encouraging. When we have a deal that money will then be put into the education budget, so it’s not there right now, but it is sitting there.”

Teachers have been without a contract since the end of June last year. “We are optimistic that we’ll be able to make progress. And it is really important that we do. Labour stability for teachers is really critical in BC and we think with an education friendly government, with an economy as strong as BC, with the government being able to put up surpluses to the budget in BC, we think there should be a lot of room for negotiation.”

Mooring says there are a number of band-aid fixes that are in place to alleviate the situation, but a permanent solution is needed. “What we’re seeing is retired teachers being coaxed back in to the system because things are so dire. We appreciate retired teachers coming back, but they’re not a dependable work force. They often don’t want to work for 10 months of the year, don’t necessarily want to be in contracts for an entire school year.”