NEWS opnewseditor@gmail.com BC Labour Battles the End or the Beginning? Nicole Burton, News Editor Last week saw the continued battle between BC teach- ers and the Liberal government in a dispute that began over two weeks ago with the passing of Bill 12 in the BC legislature. Teachers are calling for a repealing of provisions within the bill that forces the union to accept a contract without negotiations, and brands their two weeks of picket lines as a “wildcat” strike. The BC Teacher’s Federation (BCTF) and its 40,000 members have defended their actions and fought for their democratic rights to strike and to collectively bar- gain. This continued even after BCTF was fined $500,000 last Friday by BC’s Supreme Court for the illegal action—the largest fine ever thrown at a labour union in Canada. This was one of the final moves against the union after a week that was showing tremendous public sup- port for teachers across the province, from students to parents to other workers, union and non-union. On Monday, October 17, upwards of 30,000 people marched on the provincial legislature in Victoria, chant- ing “Kill Bill 12,” and waving signs that read, “Defend Workers’ Right to Organize” and “Illegal Legislation Calls for “Ilegal’ Strikes” For the afternoon, the BC Federation of Labour had called for a walkout of all union shops in the Greater Victoria area. This was fol- lowed by organized day-long walkouts by workers for the rest of the week in the Kooteneys, the Okanagan, and elsewhere in the Interior. Job action continued in the Lower Mainland on Friday, October 21—with various walkouts of workers in the public sector, including teacher assistants at UBC and SFU, where classes were canceled for many stu- dents during the day. This was coupled with two rallies during the day— first at the Pacific Coliseum in East Vancouver, in a demonstration called—for and organized by CUPE in solidarity with the BCTE. At many schools and com- munity facilities across the province, CUPE workers have refused to cross the picket lines of teachers for the duration of their strike. This was followed by a rally at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds later that afternoon, attended by over 1,000 people. BCTF president, Jinny Sims, spoke at both demonstrations. Among the attendees of the first rally was Rachel Tetrault, a student at Van Tech high school in Vancouver and an organizer in support of BC teachers. “A meeting was called a couple of weeks ago in order to organize this. There was just the idea that we should be doing something,” Tetrault explains. “There was a need to just get the support out.” She has become one of the uncountable numbers of students who themselves have been independently organizing in support of the Union over the past month, including a three-hour-long, high-school stu- dents’ rally on October 14, that saw nearly 350 students at Broadway and Granville during rush-hour traffic. Tetrault feels that these actions, organized com- pletely through students’ own initiative, are indicative of the general sentiments of high school students around the issue of the teachers strike. “As an example, when I was at the [student] rally, there were tons of students who I’d never met in my life, along with people I’d never expect to see at a rally. I think generally students are in support of the teachers on this.” The student rally was organized primarily by word of mouth, over email and student web sites. Last Friday, both the BCTF and the Liberal govern- ment agreed to recommendations by mediator Vince Ready, and have hinted that schools may be re-opening as early at Monday morning. The sentiment of workers revealed over the past month is reflecting a larger amount of unrest among people in BC, which likely won’t be resolved with the conclusion of teachers’ strike—however it turns out. The major issues of job security and contracting out that have been raised through the Telecommunication Workers Union (TWU) fight against Telus, by Canadian Media Guild workers against their employer, CBC, and even back to into 2004 with the walkout of the Hospital Employees Union (HEU), have not been resolved. And with CUPE—one of the largest labour unions in the province—up for contract negotiations in the next six months, we may be seeing the beginning of more labour struggles in BC. US Soldiers Defile Corpses Afghanistan heating up over ongoing troop presence Mike Cantelon, OP Contributor Australia’s SBS Television network has aired video of US soldiers in Afghanistan burning the bodies of dead Afghans, suspected to be Taliban fighters. In response to the popular outrage brought on by this inci- dent, similar to the US public relations disaster with the torture of Iraqis in the Abu Grahib prison, American military officials have said that the burning of the bodies was purported to be for “hygiene reasons,” but the Aussie news network also aired cover- age of the military unit taunting and desecrating the corpses. The burning of bodies is a deep insult to Muslims. Islamic teachers instruct that a body must be put to burial within 24 hours of a person’s death. \ Dateline episode on this story is available for viewing via the Internet, at: http://203.15.102.143:8080/ramgen/media/8455dl_191005a.rm.