Activist reactions to the Kelowna Accord

Stuart Alcock (Representative for Gay Men, Solidarity Coalition) At the time, I had very mixed feelings, and I think I was just talking about those mixed feelings. On the one hand, I understood the union position, the Accord, what it did. On the other hand, I was disappointed that they didn’t get any more of a political win out of it. That they weren’t able to tuck some other stuff in there. I remember, you know, the responses from a whole range of people and there was a fair amount of, you know, beating of breasts and wailing and a sense of recrimination that I thought failed to understand what Labour was all about. What the Accord, why the Accord had to occur. So, I was stuck with these mixed feelings, I think because I had mixed loyalties. And the emotions of the time were such that it was very difficult to explain one’s mixed feelings. If you tried to say to organized labour that you were disappointed, they were going, “No, we’ve achieved something.” And if you said to the community activists, you know, “Come on. This was kind of inevitable.” They would see that as a betrayal. So there were some very hard feelings.

Ken Novakowski (Bargaining Staff, BC Teachers’ Federation) We were overwhelmingly pleased that teachers supported the strike to the degree they did for those three days, but we had no idea how long it could hold out. So there was an element of relief, I have to be honest, that… Wow. But at the same time, a real significant disappointment at what the agreement included. Because the feeling was, even then, the exemption to Bill 3 so we could negotiate that and that was significant for teachers, very significant and very important. But a lot of teachers were were concerned primarily with a lot of the social justice issues like the Human Rights branch, the tenants, tenants rights being, being, being taken away. Serious cuts to education funding and to other social spending. All those things concerned teachers, and teachers also – I referred earlier to their sense of democracy. I think a lot of teachers were very offended that they had voted to go on strike, but they had no opportunity to vote about going back to work. It was just somebody was telling them, not even somebody in their own union, was telling them that they had to go back to work.

Marcy Toms (teacher, community activist) I’m an activist, and I hung around with activists in the BCTF, as well as other places. So I was, I, I probably cried. I can’t remember that now, but I probably did cry. I was probably gobsmacked. Like what just happened? These three long invigorating days, that seemed like three months of other kinds of activity, it’s stopped. Why? What has gone on? So at first, being really upset, being really confused, and then being really angry. Not everybody felt that way. I think some teachers, because I was also involved in a variety of meetings with various teachers who were concerned but still out, but wondering what is going to happen and not being particularly happy about the possibility of a general strike or this going on for a longer time. So I know not everybody felt the same way as I did, but I guess I was devastated. My expectations. Oh, you try to hold yourself back. You’ve read the history, done some analysis of what’s happened over the last one hundred and fifty years, and you know what the likelihood is. But at the same time, I guess I felt my expectations at least of a kind of union and community activist solidarity, and that holding through a longer strike, had been dashed.

Mervyn Van Steinburg (Unemployment Action Centre coordinator) Kind of relief and confusion. All kind of combined at the same time. Because the relief part, as I just described a little earlier, you know, could we even pull this off in the labour movement? And I’m not here to say whether we could or we couldn’t. That’s just… But there was that bit of relief, but the confusion about like, what does this mean? What does it mean about the 26 bills? What does it mean about, you know, the fight back? Is that finished? You know, so, so those were some of the thoughts that I remember kind of wrestling with. And I know that the conversations, you know, through the kind of Coalition stuff up there, and the same with the Solidarity stuff, and the coordinators in the Unemployed Action Centres talking to each other, trying to get a sense of what does this mean and where do we go now? In terms of, kind of, coordinating and organizing and fighting back. Because we were all pretty clear that the fightback couldn’t end. But we didn’t know in what what way it was going to carry on. So.

Lorri Rudland (Women Against the Budget) He got a promise to return the money saved by the Teachers Union strike to the school system. Bennett reneged on that. So, there were going to be teachers layoffs in ’84, but now they were early. He got a promise for consultations on the labour code, human rights, and social service cutbacks. Bennett also reneged. And getting, by the way, an agreement for consultations, that’s not a very good agreement. But even those, Bennett agreements. So what did they expect when you don’t have a written record of anything? I think that was Bennett’s plan all along. I think he intended to renege. The community got nothing. At the meetings following, both union activists and community activists like all bellowed with horror. And I agreed with this, in my opinion. I thought we were completely sold out.

Rod Mickleburgh (Labour Reporter) I remember writing on the Monday. My lead was “Bill Bennett budged, but he did so on his terms.” And you know, I think that summation stands up all these years later, because they, Social Credit, did back down on the trade union aspect of those unprecedented bills. They got rid of firing without cause. There were layoffs continued. There were a lot of layoffs, but they all took place according to the union contract and seniority. They total, Social Credit totally backed down on that issue, and they agreed to the, to the elimination of Bill 2 which was a direct hit on the B.C. Government Employees Union. So on the trade union issues, the unions really achieved a very significant victory against this hard ribbed, anti-union, resolute neo con government. I mean, this was this was a neo con revolution. You know, Milton Friedman down in Chicago loved it. He wrote about it. B.C. was in the forefront. The Fraser Institute loved it, you know. And on the trade union issues, the trade union movement won a significant victory, but that gets lost because of the way it ended. It’s just sort of the worst possible way of it to be ended.