Outdoors pi5

Nutritionist Catharine Warning
practises what she preaches

APRIL 23, 2000

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Bright Lights
= celebration
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Classifieds

Pri
* Fashion
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eee 12

Home & Garden
Pets eoe 15
Senlors eco 20
{ Travel woo 24

HIN Subicaton Company Pupisrer Peter Scere

1938 Lonsdsie Avenue Nosin Vancoser SC ¥TM 2s
Canadian Polcatons Mad Sates Pr ut Agreement No 0057248

44 Pages

NEWS photo Paul McGrath

Icarus on skis

GREG Barnes crosses his skis in mid-air last week on the sunny, sno siopes of West
Vancouver’s Cypress Bowl. A month into spring, Cypress and Grouse Mountain remain open.

Home & Garden p26

Floral arrangements
for the Easter table

Leariting Spanish
at Guatemala’s
language academies

Travel p24

FREE

CUPE negotiations continue

Katharine Hamer
News Reporter khamer@nsnews.com

TWO weeks after a strike by school support staff,
North Vancouver parents and trustees still have
serious concerns about the outcome of collective
bargaining negotiations.

North Vancouver District Parent Advisory Council (NVDPAC) chair-
woman Barb Scobie is particularly worried by the suggestion that parents be
banned from volunteer work in schools.

An agreement already reached in the Surrey school district means parents
there are forbidden from engaging in any activity which may be construed as
a CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) job. The list includes:

W callback programs;

@ reading programs,

@ playground supervision;

@ photocopying;

B computer repair;

@ clean up after a school activity (a custodian must be hired and paid for by
the PAC);

@ gardening or playground maintenance.

“We don’t even know what table it’s (the issue) is on,” Scobie said. “It’s a

step back into the Stone Age. Anything that’s in the CUPE job description,
arents aren’t allowed to do (even if) it’s something they’ve never traditional-
donc.”
y CUPE members walked off the job March 27 keeping kids out of school
for five days. The provincial government eventually introduced emergency
legislation forcing them back to work.

CUPE represents janitors, teacher's aides, and administrative staff. During
the. strike they were supported by teachers, who refused to cross CUPE pick-
et lines.

Premicr Ujjal Dosanjh appointed an industrial inquiry commission with
participation by arbitrators Vince Ready and Irene Holden to try and reach an
agreement with CUPE locals.

But North Vancouver School District Trustee Guy Heywood believes that
bringing independent labour negotiators into a school-based dispute is pre-
cisely the wrong approach to take. ;

Heywood and Scobie believe the Ministry of Education has abdicated its
responsibilities.

Tripartite negotiations are now taking place bernveen CUPE and the
BCPSEA (B.C. Public School Employers’ Association), the schcol district,
and an arbitration board.

North Vancouver School District chairwoman Pat Heal has been permit-
ted to sit in on discussions as a courtesy, said Heywood, but because an infor-
mation blackout has been declared, parents don’t know how talks are pro-

See Call page 13

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