The Bully Makes the Rules

I keep hearing this rhetoric about the four poor teachers in Merritt who crossed the picket line in a strike by their own union. It keeps getting pointed out that the picket line-crossing teachers were law-abiding, which is one of the spun buzzwords of the Campbell government that makes laws to impose its bully aganda onto those who might say otherwise. Now Jinny Sims and the big bad BCTF (Have unions ever been made to look good in the news? I really wonder why that is...) are being portrayed as monsters who would dare punish a law-abider.

Anyways, I think it should be pointed out that this last "illegal" strike was not the first time the BCTF has clashed with the Campbell government. While it was fairly widely reported in labour newsletters, there wasn't much talk, as far as I remember, and there isn't much today, about how the International Labour Organization (ILO), the branch of the UN concerned with workers' rights condemned the legislation declaring teaching an essential service and thereby removing the right to legally strike. This is from the last time the Liberals did this, back in 2001:

The Committee notes that this complaint, by contrast to Case No. 2166, concerns the
education sector, which it does not consider as an essential service in the strict sense of the
term where the right to strike could be restricted or prohibited [see Digest, op. cit.,
para. 545]. Recalling that the right to strike is one of the essential means through which
workers and their organizations may promote and defend their economic and social
interest [see Digest, op. cit., para. 475], the Committee concludes that the provisions of Bill No. 18 which make education an essential service are in violation of freedom of
association principles and should be repealed.

Gordon Campbell the bully makes internationally illegal laws to get what he wants. Unions are one of the best and only methods we have to stand up to tyrant employers. Jinny Sims is not a gangster. She is standing up for principles that are enshrined by the United Nations.