It was nine years ago this week that teachers in Richmond – along with their colleagues across B.C. – rallied outside the school district offices as the threat of a province-wide strike loomed.
Teachers in Richmond — unhappy with the lack of funding for the province’s education system and with classroom conditions — only worked from “bell-to-bell” that week in 2012, as part of what the teachers’ union, the BCTF, called a “day of action.”
By the following Monday, the teachers across B.C. walked out on a three-day strike, as the provincial government hurriedly tried to halt the legal strike by bringing in legislation that suspended their right to walk out while a government-appointed mediator attempted to find common ground.
Teachers in Richmond also scoffed at the government’s attempt to label them an “essential service” to thwart the strike, with one saying at the time “an essential service means that people will die if we don’t work.”
