While relations are fractured between the teachers and the provincial government, two local labour allies are having a dispute of their own.
The president of the local Canadian Union of Public Employees' is "disappointed" the president of the New Westminster Teachers' Union allowed picket lines to come down Thursday at the New Westminster school district's Columbia Square headquarters so two CUPE members could enter the building to help with staffing and payroll for next year.
"I'm very unhappy and very disappointed in the NWTU and the fact that they would allow that to happen after we've been out here for the last two weeks supporting them 100 per cent, after our union is paying $2 million in strike pay since last Monday. ... I have a real hard time with that happening," CUPE Local 409 president Marcel Marsolais told The Record.
CUPE members received $15 a day for the first 10 days of the strike - that amount has now risen to $75 a day. Marsolais estimates CUPE members have lost about two weeks' pay as a result of the teachers' strike.
New Westminster Teachers' Union president Grant Osborne said the union OK'd closing down the picket line at Columbia Square because they want to get the staffing dealt with for the fall.
"We have the CUPE people who are working on some staffing, so that building is not locked out today," he said. "It's something that we've been working on in terms of making sure staffing can happen, and that has been the development. ... We've been wanting staffing to happen, so yes, we've obviously OK'd that."
But Marsolais said exempt staff should be looking after the staffing during the strike.
"I don't know why it couldn't wait until next week, the week after or when this whole dispute is resolved. Certainly, if it was CUPE's picket line, if it was CUPE that was on strike, we'd shut this whole district down - everything but the daycare," he said. "Anything else, we would shut down and let administration do."
Marsolais acknowledged the two union leaders had a good relationship before this issue, but said it's changed as a result of Thursday's situation.
"It won't create a rift in the workplace, but it has created a rift between the leadership," he said.
Local CUPE members will continue to walk picket lines, he added, but said the situation at Columbia Square has taken the wind out of their sails.
Superintendent John Gaiptman said the district needed cooperation from both CUPE and the NWTU because there are "specific" skills that the two CUPE staffers had.
"There are numerous teachers who would like know if they will work in the (district) if there is a job for them in the fall, and if so, where they will actually be placed," he said. "They need to know it for their summer advance. We pay teachers from July 1 to July 1, so if they are employed, they start collecting their pay in July."
The teachers get paid even if they are on strike because it is an advance, Gaiptman explained.
The superintendent didn't want to comment on the tension between the two unions.
"I can only say that certainly we appreciated the support that we received today to get through staffing, but I cannot and will not comment on etiquette during the strike," said Gaiptman, who spent part of the day setting up chairs for the high school grad ceremonies being held that night - just one of the many extra duties he and other senior administrators have had to take over as a result of job action.
Robert Weston, the district's director of human resources, is the only staff member in the HR department who is exempt from the union.
"Without their help we would not be able to progress," he said about the two CUPE workers who came in to work on staffing for the next school year.
