BURNABY – On Tuesday, June 10, CUPE BC Secretary-Treasurer Paul Faoro was invited to speak at a BCTF rally outside the Ministry of Education offices in Victoria.
“I was honoured to accept the invitation to speak on behalf of all 85,000 CUPE members in BC,” said Faoro. “I thought it was important to reaffirm our message that CUPE stands in 100 percent solidarity with the teachers of BC and with their struggle to achieve a fair and reasonable contract that respects their role and improves classroom conditions for all our kids.”
The Victoria rally saw more than 200 teachers, parents and members of other unions crowd the sidewalk and driveway of the Ministry, and in addition to Faoro’s remarks, other speakers included NDP MLA and education critic Rob Fleming and BCTF first vice president Glen Hansman.
Faoro reminded the rally that Christy Clark used a hardhat as a campaign prop almost every day during the last election and said that “Ms. Clark should put on her hardhat and get to work on a deal for teachers and our kids—they deserve it! Our public education system should be the top priority of the provincial government. It’s not now, and we need to all demand that the Premier change that.”
Later Tuesday afternoon in Vancouver, Faoro and other CUPE activists joined a rally of several hundred outside the offices of the BC Public School Employers’ Association.
To see gallery of photographs from BCTF rallies on May 29 in Burnaby and June 10 in Victoria and Vancouver, go to the CUPE BC photo gallery or check out CUPE BC’s Facebook page here.
