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Civic employees remember those killed on the job PHOTOS BY
GORD GOBLE
CUPE Local 454 recognized the National Day of Mourning with a ceremony Monday at Ladner’s Rotary Park. Phylis Cameron and son Doug (left) paid tribute to their late husband and father, Murray, who was killed on duty. Many civic employees, including fire Chief Dan Copeland, took part in the ceremony.
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Teachers pull plug on field trips
Job action escalates at Delta schools as DTA tells its members not to participate to remove any uncertainty BY
SANDOR GYARMATI
sgyarmati@delta-optimist.com
Delta teachers are ramping up their job action by cancelling participation in field trips for the remainder of the school year. Delta Teachers’ Association president Paul Steer confirmed the move Wednesday. Teachers across the province launched the first phase of job action last week after 72-hour strike notice was issued to all public school districts. It meant teachers wouldn’t be going on a
full-scale strike and shutting down schools, but they are withdrawing from certain administrative duties. Teachers stopped meeting with administrators, won’t engage in written communications with administrators and will not undertake student supervision during non-instructional time. Steer told the Optimist Delta teachers had been participating in field trips, especially ones that had been planned well in advance of the initial job action. However, due to the possibility of escalating job action before the school year
Paul Steer DTA president
ends, teachers have been advised to no longer participate. He said the directive removes any uncertainty for students and parents in the event teachers move to the second phase of job action. A number of school districts, but not Delta, decided to cancel recess, a move the B.C. Teachers’ Federation claimed was unnecessary, saying staff are more than capable of supervising the playground for 15 minutes each day. Meantime, classroom teaching in the current phase is continuing as usual and report cards will con-
tinue to be issued. The BCTF said it began job action in response to disappointing progress at the negotiating table, where the government and employer’s association have not backed off from what it deems as unfair and unreasonable demands. Steer said teachers are frustrated that after a year of bargaining, government remains unwilling to acknowledge that classes across B.C. have never been larger or more challenging. See TEACHERS page 3
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