B.C. Teachers’ Federation President Teri Mooring in a letter to BCTF members on Thursday informed them that the federation had filed an application with the Labour Relations Board to address their “many outstanding concerns.”

The letter stated: “First and foremost, I want to recognize how difficult the last two weeks have been on all of you. As I wrote in my letter to the Minister of Education this week, the employer is taking advantage of your professionalism, the high expectations you put on yourselves, and your caring for students. I know many of you feel unsafe and the government is failing to ensure school districts are doing everything they can to ensure you and your students are as safe as you can be.

“The BCTF continues to push every available strategy to address the inequities of working conditions, the haphazard implementation of health and safety measures, and confusing changes in government messages and documents.

“As part of our strategy, the Federation’s lawyers have been hard at work analyzing British Columbia’s legislative framework to see what we can do from a legal perspective to force changes. Today, the BCTF filed an application with the Labour Relations Board under Section 88 of the BC Labour Relations Code. It is a rarely used provision that we believe can compel the government into a labour relations process to address our many outstanding concerns. Our hope is to get the government to address the many communication, process, and health and safety problems of their restart plan. Critically, our application seeks to enhance the enforcement measures to ensure school districts take all possible actions to keep teachers and students safe.

“We have asked the Labour Relations Board to address our concerns and application as quickly as possible.”