The start of the school year is less than two weeks away and teachers in the province are still without a collective bargaining agreement.

As eight days of negotiations are under way between the B.C. Public School Employers Association and the BC Teachers Federation, both sides are optimistic a deal can still be reached before students get back to class

Vice president of the BCTF, Clint Johnston was on the NL Morning News and was asked if they don’t get a deal done, will there be job action?

“We’re not even discussing that yet,” he said.

“I know it sounds a bit cliche but our entire focus is on these eight days because, as I said, that’s actually a lot of time and if both sides come and put a lot of work in and focus on that we think we can get a deal so, if that has to be talked about and dealt with we can but that’s not our focus right now.”

As far wages go, Johnston says “I’m not going to pretend that money isn’t important as well. We’re currently ninth out of the entire country in terms of pay, we’re the worst in Western Canada and we’re one of the most expensive provinces in Canada to live in so when you’re got that kind of dynamic, you’re certainly not going to attract people from the province next door that makes fifteen thousand dollars more than you.”

And would Johnston like to see BC teachers closer to the top of that list?

“No, the BCTF isn’t even bargaining to be number one,” he noted. “We’d be happy to be middle of the pack right now.”

Johnston added the union is aware “there’s not infinite resources, we’re just looking to catch up and make sure we have a salary that means teachers actually live in the communities comfortably that they teach in.”