Dale Bass – Kamloops This Week
The superintendent of the Kamloops-Thompson school district can’t understand why the head of the teachers’ union in the city wants SD73 to violate the collective agreement.
Karl de Bruijn said a demand by David Komljenovic, president of the Kamloops-Thompson Teachers Association (KTTA), that teachers receive an extra day’s pay as part of the return-to-work agreement accompanying the new contract with the provincial B.C. Teachers’ Federation.
The day in question is Friday, Sept. 19.
“Teachers were paid for that day already,” de Bruijn said. “And, David is asking for them to be paid again for that day.”
In fact, de Bruijn said, Komljenovic has confirmed in writing to the district teachers received payment for the Friday they spent preparing for classes to begin on Sept. 22.
In a letter to school-board chair Denise Harper, sent on Oct. 8, Komljenovic wrote “While we recognize that the payments and deductions were done correctly calculated according to the collective agreement, we note that there are a number of districts with similar contract language who have been paid an additional day.”
“I have received numerous grievances [from the KTTA] alleging violations of the collective agreement in some way and now I have a request from him to violate the collective agreement and pay teachers for an additional day they have already been paid for,” de Bruijn said.
In the Kamloops-Thompson district, as in several other school districts throughout the province, teachers are not paid by the day but are paid an annual contract salary based on the average of 195 working or instructional days each school year, board treasurer Kelvin Stretch said.
“Any instructional days not worked are deducted at 1/195th of the annual contract amount,” he said.
“As required by the collective agreement, teachers are paid an equal 1/20th of their annual contract salary, semi-monthly, September to June, regardless of the actual number of working/instructional days within each individual pay period.
“For example, in December of this year, the first pay period has 11 working days and the second has just four working days, but the pay will be exactly the same for both periods.”
The pay issue began earlier this month when teachers in Coquitlan said they were not paid for Sept. 19. In a document explaining the return-to-work agreement and how it impacts pay, BCPSEA wrote:
“The position taken by the union and reported by various media is incorrect. Teachers in the Coquitlan school district were paid for all the days worked in September, including Sept. 19, in accordance with their collective-agreement language.
“It remains BCPSEA’s advice that school districts follow their local collective agreement language to determine the correct and agreed-upon approach to teacher pay for this September.