The Labour Education and
Training Research Network

The BC Accord On Government Contract Training

After six months of tough negotiations, BC's college faculty unions, college employers and the Provincial Government entered into a three party agreement referred to as the College, University College, Institutes and Agencies Training Accord (Accord) in the early summer of 1998. The Accord had a number of objectives covering colleges, university colleges, institutes and agencies (‘colleges’ here for convenience). One was to strengthen the public college sector by enabling BC's colleges to win a greater share of the Government's contract training purchases. A second was to provide additional jobs and job security to college faculty. A third was to improve the capacity of colleges to meet the Government's contract training needs. A final objective was to facilitate settling a collective agreement at the college sector bargaining table.

Since it was negotiated, the Accord has resulted in a significant increase in the volume and value of Government training contracts awarded to the Province's public colleges. It has also facilitated significant changes to Government tendering processes, eliminating barriers to colleges bidding on Government contracts. And it has encouraged colleges to become more responsive to the Government's training requirements.

While numerous factors contributed to the feasibility of negotiating such an Accord, three were of particular significance. The first was the extensive groundwork carried out by colleges and faculty unions over the previous decade to provide them with a greater voice in shaping the Province's educational policies. The second was the adoption of a new, sector-wide framework for college bargaining in the previous round of negotiations. This development made a sector-wide Accord with Government feasible. And the third was the Province's interest in using the Accord process to identify and implement public policy objectives that would also facilitate achieving a sector-wide settlement at the bargaining table.

On the educational policy side, the Accord grew out of the new framework for BC's college system reflected in the policy document "Charting a New Course". This policy framework was the result of a co-operative process, beginning in the early 1990s, between the BC Ministry of Advanced Education Training and Technology, college presidents, members of college boards, faculty/staff unions and students. It represented a significant break from the past by approaching post-secondary education and training issues from a system-wide perspective.

In the lengthy consultative process that led to "Charting a New Course", BC's public colleges and their unions noted the numerous barriers they faced in winning tendered government training/education contracts (including contracts awarded directly by Government managers). The BC Government, its Crown corporations and agencies were purchasing an estimated $250 million worth of training annually. Public colleges - and unionised college faculty - got very little of this, largely as a result of past practices that gave preference to private providers. They wanted a fairer system.

The Government wanted to improve the capacity of public colleges to respond to its training needs through greater flexibility in scheduling and location of training, a clearer focus on the training needs of ministries and Government clients and expanded delivery of training in the regions. It also wanted a settlement at the bargaining table.

The Public Sector Accord Process

The Province initiated the Public Sector Accord process in January 1998 to explore the feasibility of negotiating agreements on public policy issues among three parties: Government, unions and public employers. It was parallel to, but separate from, collective bargaining. Tony Penikett was appointed Chief Accord negotiator with a status of Deputy Minister to the Premier. His task was to implement the Accord process across the broader public sector, eventually negotiating 33 separate accords.

He was also charged with representing the Government in its capacity as policy maker, but was, quite explicitly, not to act in the capacity of an employer. All Accords had to be defensible as good public policy and in the broader public interest. They also had to be cost neutral. The Government did not have a preconceived agenda for the Accord process. Rather, it believed that the policy issues had to be identified by employers and unions.

Summary of the Content of the Training Accord

The Accord establishes a new relationship between the Government, as the purchaser of contract training, and the public colleges and their faculty unions. The Government agreed to 'enhance the role of public trainers' through five specific initiatives: 1) a review of the tendering process to eliminate barriers to public colleges obtaining contracts; 2) supporting the Contract Training and Marketing Society (CTM, an agency marketing the programs of the college, university college, institute and agency system); 3) promoting partnerships between colleges and Government ministries, agencies and Crowns; 4) strengthening the accreditation process for non-public providers; and 5) requiring Government managers to 'first consider' the use of public educational institutions before they consider offering training contracts to other providers. The Government also agreed to a joint implementation process involving the colleges and unions.

Colleges agreed to implement changes to enable them to meet Government training needs more effectively and to share the Accord's benefits with faculty in a 'fair and equitable' manner.

Faculty unions agreed to work closely with the colleges to enable them to compete successfully for Government training contracts. This meant making some adjustments in working practices. Unions also agreed that the Accord would only be implemented after reaching a collective agreement within the Government's fiscal mandate. In a sense, this was the most fundamental quid pro quo.

Implementation of the Accord

The parties to the Accord recognized the need to oversee the implementation process on an ongoing basis. An Implementation Steering Committee, which included the three parties plus representatives from the BC Government Purchasing Commission, the Public Service Employee Relations Commission and Crown corporations was established to work through the numerous issues associated with implementation.

The Contract Training and Marketing Society, a joint union-employer organisation established in the previous round of central table collective bargaining and funded by the Ministry, also provided an important institutional vehicle for implementing the Accord. The value of training contracts increased almost ten-fold from $325,000 in 1997/98 to over $3 million in 2000/01.

The Accord also enabled the Government to put more money into the colleges without having to increase its total spending. In light of the success of colleges in bidding on contracts, the objective of making the colleges more responsive appears also to have been achieved.

There are a number of features of the Accord which make it a unique public policy and labour relations initiative. The decision to attempt the Accord process itself was a major risk for the Government. It could have been a failure, as indicated by the experience of other governments in attempting similar tripartite initiatives. The idea of asking unions and employers to suggest potential public policy changes outside of collective bargaining was also unusual. It was by no means obvious, in advance, that these suggestions could be developed into an Accord that would be defensible as good public policy in the public interest while still addressing significant concerns of the parties. However, the issue identified by the college unions and their employers proved to be suitable and viable.

In sum the experiment seems to have worked, not simply from the perspective of resolving a collective agreement, but also in terms of laying the foundations for a new relationship between colleges, college unions and the Government in the area of contract training and education.

* "Charting a New Course" is available on the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology website http://www.aett.gov.bc.ca/strategic/newcourse; a full text of the Accord is available on the AETT website: http://www.aett.gov.bc.ca/policy_accord.