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The British Columbia Teacher’s Federation and its conversion to partisanship, 1966-1972

University of British Columbia

This is a study of the conversion to partisanship of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation. Research material was derived from interviews with teachers, former B.C.T.F. Executive Committee Members, B.C.T.F. staff members, school trustees, and members of the government. This information was supplemented by material obtained from B.C.T.F. monthly newsletters and other publications, local newspapers, government reports and interest group literature. From these sources, some factors influencing the B.C.T.F. to become partisan seemed evident. These factors were: 1. Restrictive government education policies; particularly the removal by legislation of automatic membership provisions in the B.C.T.F., and the elimination of teachers' collective bargaining rights; 2. Societal trends - the late 1960's and early 1970's were times of protest and rejection of the status quo. These trends and the increasing militancy of other teachers in Canada influenced the B.C. teachers to consider anti-government protest action. 3. A power struggle within the B.C.T.F.; between the hired General Secretary, who had held the position since 1947, and the elected Executive Committee, attempting to wield the power it was entitled to according to the B.C.T.F. Constitution. The struggle was won by the elected members, who were then successful in influencing the rest of the membership to take radical action against the government. 4. An increase in wealth and expertise in the B.C.T.F.; from 1966-1972, the budget of the B.C.T.F. doubled, and this helped to increase the capacity of the organization. Now it became possible to hire experts to help organize political protest action. The President and the Vice-President of the federation had time off with pay from their teaching duties, and this gave them the opportunity to devote their time to politicizing the members. The anti-government campaign of 1972 became a viable alternative to more conventional interest group activity. 5. The Department of Education's seeming incompetence. From 1965-1970, 8 new junior colleges and 2 new universities were instituted by the B.C. government; Deputy Education Minister Dr. Neil Perry was said to have neglected the public school system in favor of post-secondary education. The Department was unable to stretch the education budget to take care of this added load plus the rapidly increasing public school enrollment. Education Minister Donald Brothers antagonized the teachers and imposed measures to try to weaken the B.C.T.F. These departmental inadequacies influenced the teachers to take anti-government action. The conclusions of the study were that these five factors played a role in influencing the B.C.T.F. to become partisan. As well, it was concluded that the strong anti-government stance taken by the British Columbia Teachers' Federation was the inevitable result of the strong anti-group policies of W.A.C. Bennett's Social Credit government. Interest groups generally do not become partisan; the B.C.T.F., then, was an exception, responding to the exceptional circumstances posed by the strong anti-group government in power in British Columbia from 1952-1972.

Text

2010-03-09

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21699

Political Science

University of British Columbia

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