Teachers Vote 89 Percent in Favour of Strike
Prince George, B.C. – BC Teachers have voted 89% in favour of job action to back their contract demands.
“I knew it would be a positive vote” says Tina Cousins, President of the Prince George Teachers Association, which represents about 1,000 teachers with School District 57. “Teachers are taking a stand, they are concerned about classroom conditions we want to send a message that we are not happy.”
Contract talks resume tomorrow morning, and Cousins says this strong strike mandate should give their negotiators some muscle.
At this point though, Cousins says there is no plan for job action “ There’s an initial job action but nothing has been decided at this point in time. So further down the road, our executive committee will let us know what our next steps will be.”
Cousins says the strong vote in favour of job action “ is our initial pressure. 89% I a lot o f members, so that tells you it’s a very strong united strike vote.”
The two sides have been at the bargaining table all week, and were scheduled to return to the bargaining table next week.
The teachers have 90 days to activate the strike vote with some sort of action.
Comments
Completely shocking!!!! Another BCTF jihad on the way.
Full support for the teachers.
Feel “sorry” for these “low paid” teachers
A good friend of mine is a teacher. She was paid $82,000.00 last year. On top of that, she has a pension, terrific benefits including sick days, dental, medical, etc., and a LOT of vacation time!! She knows that she is very well off!
Jim Iker and the BCTF won’t state what their wage demands will be. I wonder how much better off Iker wants his members to be??
I’m thinking that it’s getting to the point where it might be better to just quit work and go on welfare as opposed to working harder and working longer in order to pay the never ending tax increases required to fund our public sector! Never mind asking for a raise or hoping to get ahead, I like many others in the private sector would just like to be able to keep my head above water.
A raise! What’s that? Better benefits! What are benefits?? Paid vacations! Heck, time off means no income!!!
Don’t even bother to tell me that the teachers are fighting “for the children”! We all know that that is just a load of bull! It’s all about wage increases! It’s always about the wage increases!
Ok, I’ll shut up now so that the left wing nuts here can tell me that I just need to suck it up, work harder and make more money so that I am able to pay the never ending tax increases required to fund public sector wage increases!
I know I am jealous too hart guy but we are both at our dead end jobs and wished we went to school but hay lets bitch about teachers instead that will make us feel better.
“Ok, I’ll shut up now so that the left wing nuts here can tell me that I just need to suck it up, work harder and make more money so that I am able to pay the never ending tax increases required to fund public sector wage increases!”
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Not saying that there isn’t an argument to control public sector salaries, but can you tell me, specifically, which of your taxes have been increased to fund the salary increases you speak of?
Hart Guy….I doubt you have any teacher friends…..you are most likely a Lieberal hired propoganda blogger. By the way ……teachers pay for their own pensions through large paycheque deductions which are then invested and through COMPOUND INTEREST over many years earn over 90% of the teacher’s pension. The propoganda spewed by teacher haters that the tax payer pays the pension is false. I recall the years people I know were making huge financial gains in their rrssp mutual funds and heading to Hawaii and Mexico on the Profits. But the Lieberals like to spin this myth about teacher pensions. After all….the bigger the lie told iften enough….will brainwash poor old Hart Guy
I guess you should of stayed in school Hart Guy!
I hear you Hart Guy, I employ a lot of people and pay more taxes than both of my teacher neighbours and their neighbours combined! I don’t mind paying as long as the public sector is being sensible, but I am getting sick of my teacher neighbours bragging to me about how little they work or that their one year stress leave holiday is ending! I put in 3 to 4500 hrs a year. Oh, and a teacher friend of mine retired with no money after the teachers union pension fund lost it all! Smart bunch
Let’s give them a raise. 2% a year for the next three years. In return., the school year goes to 11 months with August being a break for everyone. Christmas break is only a week now and there’s no longer any such thing as Spring Break. The day will be 8:00 am until 5:00 pm for the teachers; which gives them about an hour and a half hours at the end of the day to prepare the next days lesson plan. The 8 or so extra weeks of classroom time will mean that teacher’s won’t have to do any work on their own time.
I think I just heard the Province’s teachers gasping at your proposal, axman.
Lets not not let the fact that 89% voted in favor of job action or that those 89% “are the BCTF”, get in the way of your anti BCTF whining. Teachers pay people to represent them. They are the people the teachers have chosen for that job. The BCTF did’t travel here from another galaxy like so many of you like to portray them as doing. Teachers are the BCTF. Teachers are standing together as one under their banner “The BCTF”.
Anytime anyone tries to better themselves you dips whine and cry about how these people are greedy, are holding students hostage and all the other moronic statements you make.
It’s pretty clear many of you never had a real teacher in your lives!
Dragonmaster on March 7 2014 8:43 AM
It’s pretty clear many of you never had a real teacher in your lives!
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Only because “real” teachers are a dying breed. They’ve been replaced by people looking for a well paying gig with lots of time off.
To further axman’s sentiment, I went to school a long time ago but I still remember having many ‘real’ teachers and some who were just punching a clock. Fortunately, the real teachers outnumbered the clock punchers.
Today, I am not confident the ratio is the same.
Posted by: axman on March 7 2014 8:56 AM
Dragonmaster on March 7 2014 8:43 AM
It’s pretty clear many of you never had a real teacher in your lives!
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Only because “real” teachers are a dying breed. They’ve been replaced by people looking for a well paying gig with lots of time off.
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I’m sure there will be more ridiculous comments like yours axman.
Keep’em coming whiners!
There’s the lead collaborator now!
checkitout writes:
Oh, and a teacher friend of mine retired with no money after the teachers union pension fund lost it all! Smart bunch
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The BC Teachers’ Pension Plan is controlled by the BC Investment Management Corporation (BCIMC), which manages a global portfolio of about $100 billion in assets. There is a great deal of money in the fund, even though the number of contributors to the Teachers’ Pension Plan is slowly declining. check them out at http://www.bcimc.com/ if you need to know more.
As an aside, it does get a bit frustrating to hear people spew out half baked and misinformed ‘truths’ about my chosen profession. But, I take it from the source and realize that if it were not for teachers, many would not enjoy the insightful and witty banter that they do.
Enjoy your Friday.
Never made it up Billy, He retired from his teaching job in Kitimat , maybe 30 yrs ago
Posted by: Dragonmaster on March 7 2014 9:02 AM
Posted by: axman on March 7 2014 8:56 AM
Dragonmaster on March 7 2014 8:43 AM
I’m sure there will be more ridiculous comments like yours axman.
Keep’em coming whiners!
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You do realize that people would be more inclined to listen to your side of the discussion if you could come up with something more unique then your tired old attempts to insult?
89%- That is almost 2 out of every three teachers according to a recent high school graduate:P
On this site there is one poster who claims to be a tax paying teacher who cannot properly construct a simple sentence in most posts complaining that he/she has had to tutor his/her own kids because their math teacher was doing such a poor job. Really? How could a person graduate high school and continue their education long enough to obtain a teaching certificate and not be able to teach one of the three R’s at a high school level.
High time that a teacher’s job performance and the results they produce become part of the negotiation process, weeding out the weak teachers.
Hey axman you do realize they only get paid 10 months out of the year don’t ya, having them to work an extra month might be good for them do they can get paid, plus a lot of them do work till 430 -5 and that I now personally
No thanks, axman. I treasure the time with my children that they aren’t in school.
Posted by: buzzinga on March 7 2014 10:13 AM
Hey axman you do realize they only get paid 10 months out of the year don’t ya, having them to work an extra month might be good for them do they can get paid, plus a lot of them do work till 430 -5 and that I now personally
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You are misinformed. Their salary is based on a 12 month period; ie they get paid for the entire year.
You missed my point of my 8 to 5. Most teachers complain about having to work in the evenings; my proposal eliminates that.
buzzinga and NoWay suggest that I should have stayed in school!
For your information, I did stay in school, all the way through Grade 12 on an academic program. I then continued my education by attending and graduating from a Post-Secondary institute, where I with focused studies, hard work and by taking additional classes each semester, managed to graduate with 2 majors in the time that most would normally obtain only 1!
taxpayerteacher, your inability to form proper sentences and use proper spelling at a time when spell-check is readily available, causes me a great deal of concern over the education that YOUR students might be receiving from you!!
Dragonmaster, as someone who pays more than my fair share of taxes, I have the right to bitch about how my taxes are spent! I also have the right to question and hold accountable those that want the collective “me” to pay them more!!
So Hart guy you must get really pissed when you find out that your taxed dollars are paying for most of our politicians exotic vacations, yeah money worth spending.
axman: “You do realize that people would be more inclined to listen to your side of the discussion if you could come up with something more unique then your tired old attempts to insult?”
It’s all Dragonmaster has.
buzzinga, obviously you haven’t been paying attention as I bitch about that as well!
Congrats to the teachers , if all of BC were on strike wouldn’t bother me , it seems that our Liberal Gov is not concerned of our Children , seniors or the economy . Just more people moving to Alberta .
Congrats to the teachers , if all of BC were on strike wouldn’t bother me , it seems that our Liberal Gov is not concerned of our Children , seniors or the economy . Just more people moving to Alberta .
LOL, sorry Hart Guy just trying to keep up with everyone on here.
89% of , let’s say 40% of the teachers who actually voted are the 89%? What percentage of how many of ALL the teachers voted in favour? My union would never publish the numbers who voted in a strike vote. But then again, if your union constantly got around only 10% of it’s union members to attend union meetings wouldn’t that say anything? The post office employees, like the First Nations folks don’t vote for their chief/president. Our “delegates” do. Now that’s what I call democracy.
Actually taxpayerteacher your pension plan is not entirely funded by your contributions. Look at your T4 slip and you’ll see something called a pension adjustment – it’s Box 52. That’s how much the employer kicked into that pension plan – the employer being all of us taxpayers – and it runs about 1.4 times the amount you put in. So on top of your regular t4 income, the employer is kicking in for your future pension in addition to you.
Not really against the teacher’s getting a fair settlement, just don’t like comments that are pure fiction.
Taxpayerteacher â your pension is paid into by both the employee and the employer.http://www.pensionsbc.ca/portal/page/portal/PEN_CORP_HOME/TPP_HOME_PAGE/TPP_PT_NEW_MEMBER/TPP_PT_NM_INFORMATION/
Employee contribution rates are currently set at:
â¢12.50 per cent of your salary up to and including the YMPE
â¢14.00 per cent of your salary above the YMPE
Employer contribution rates are currently set at:
â¢14.63 per cent of your salary up to and including the YMPE
â¢16.13 per cent of your salary above the YMPE
These rates include the employee contribution of three per cent of your pensionable earnings and the employer contribution of 1.13 per cent of your pensionable earnings that help fund health benefit payments for pensioners, and that go to the Inflation Adjustment Account (IAA).The IAA is used to offset the effects of inflation
This is a higher rate than Police, firefighters, College and university professors. In Fact that is almost double what a municipal employee (other than those previously stated ) have directed into a Pension. So no you donât pay for your entire pension. Learn the facts. Your benefits cost an additional 25% on top of your wages.
Great information Siabiz, thanks for contributing something valid to the conversation.
So why aren’t you making 82+k a year Hart guy? Or you do and can’t stand the fact that someone else might! By the way most teachers don’t make anywhere close to 82k a year!
Find a better job if you don’t get paid time off. I thought holiday pay was part of the BC labour code, so you do get holiday pay.
NoWay, maybe I don’t make more than 82k a year and then again maybe I make more, a lot more!
Being self-employed, the difference between me and the teachers is that in order for me to make more money, I need to work longer hours than I already do, work more weekends than I already do, cut my expenses more than I already have and last but not least raise my rates, at the risk of losing customers and income!
Also and in case you didn’t know it, when it comes to paid time off and holiday pay, the BC Labour Code means very little to self-employed people and most business owners do not get paid time off!
Hart Guy, you’re forgetting those other joys of small business.
On behalf of the government, you have to collect and remit GST – and if you do it wrong – penalties and interest.
On behalf of the government, you have to collect and remit PST – and if you do it wrong – penalties and interest.
On behalf of the government, you have to pay WCB – and if you do it wrong – penalties and interest.
On behalf of the government, you have to collect and remit employee source deductions – and if you do it wrong – penalties and interest.
You have to understand and abide by the labour standards act – and if you get it wrong….
At any time, you can have one or all of a income tax auditor, a GST auditor, a PST auditor, a WCB auditor, a payroll deductions auditor- because the government can’t figure out how to get all the audits done by one person at the same time.
Being in business is so much fun I almost wish I could go back in time and become a teacher – but that ship has sailed.
My retirement plan – keep working – good thing I like my job and hopefully my customers won’t mind a overall 2.5% increase in fees this year.
If people want the benefits of being an employee, stop being a business owner.
If people want the benefits of being a business owner, stop being an employee.
What’s so difficult? Is anyone happy out there?
“this strong strike mandate should give their negotiators some muscle.”
to rephrase:
“Hey, if you don’t give us what we want, we will go on strike!”
in other circles, this would be construed as extortion. In these modern times, that term has been replaced be the term “terrorist”
To those resorting to name calling, hyperbole, etc. please stop. The site only allows so many posts before the thread is locked for lack of a better term. Once you resort to name calling you should probably come to the realization that your argument is not standing up on its own and that is why you are doing it. Each of you would likely call the other a troll, so why do you even bother engaging? Ignore each other, because you both do a disservice to your arguments with the way you are going about it. Your posts containing no substance are taking up valuable discussion space.
To all those contributing to real discussion on both sides, thank you.
I have posted this once before and got no response. Here is my argument to all those saying the “taxpaying” private sector is having things made harder and harder for them by the greedy public sector. Please note the difference in raises between the two sectors. Search the database (Second link) for a little bit and recognize who has it better off in the raise department.
http://www.bcbargaining.ca/content/1114/SEV46N01Dec_Jan.pdf
http://www.bcbargaining.ca/
On a side note. No one ever provided a good answer to NMG when he said “Not saying that there isn’t an argument to control public sector salaries, but can you tell me, specifically, which of your taxes have been increased to fund the salary increases you speak of?”
Smooth: “On a side note. No one ever provided a good answer to NMG when he said “Not saying that there isn’t an argument to control public sector salaries, but can you tell me, specifically, which of your taxes have been increased to fund the salary increases you speak of?”
If taxes didn’t fund public sector salary increases, then where did the money come from? Did it just appear out of thin air? Is there a money tree somewhere I am not aware of?
JohnnyBelt, you didn’t answer the question. The answer is that your taxes didn’t go up due to wage increases from public sector unions.
The government has been net zero and cooperative gains’ing for a while now. People keep saying they are getting squeezed over and over by public sector unions and it just is not true (provincially) for some time now. While MLA’s have certainly received raises, and recently municipalities have been giving raises to union and nonunion both. Provincial unions have not received a raise that affected the Provincial bottom line.
Smooth-there was also substantial transfer payments in this budget from two large corporations. Indirect fees/taxes/and levies still result in decrease to a households disposable income. Please investigate the provincial budget deeper than what is reported via media. Decreases in provincial to municipal causes municipal taxes to increase. Remove the transfer payments from the two crown corps and bring the municipal payments to the previous levels and then you would see a direct tax increase however you see it indirectly if you look for it
Should read —- decreases in provincial to municipal payments cause municipal taxes to increase
I agree completely that increases to premiums and fees etc. are a way that governments hide and increase to taxation. Hydro rates and MSP are perfect examples. But, lets be clear to NMG’s original question. None of those have been increased to fund salary increases to provincial public sector unions.
So you choose to be a business owner congratz Hart Guy! You’re living the dream the more you do for yourself the more you make. Business owners are very hard workers because if they don’t work their business’s could fail. Walk in a teachers shoes for a year to see what it is really like. You might be very surprized how many hours they work after school but unlike you do not get anything extra for the extra time they put in.
I guess the grass is always greener……
but NoWay, if I bust my a$$, put in weekends and evenings, take risks and end up being successful, then the “lefties” think that I should pay more, pay my fair(?) share so that my wealth can be more equitably shared with those that don’t work evenings and weekends, don’t take risks and don’t bust their a$$!!
If I take the risks, if I gamble/mortgage my future in order to grow my business and I succeed in the process, why is this seen as negative by the lefties? Why is success seen as something negative?
If I bought a lottery ticket and if I won the lottery, would you feel entitled to some of my winnings?? Perhaps if you had split the cost of the ticket with me and taken the risks that I had, then I would be more than willing to share the rewards with you!
Each and every day, business owners shows up and hope that enough business occurs that day to pay all of the associated costs, taxes and fees that exist. They hope that at the end of the day, there is enough profit left to sustain the owner and the owner’s family! There are no guarantees!
A teacher goes to university for 4 years and then after getting hired, enjoys a career almost completely devoid of risk! Show up and get paid, even if your students do poorly and even if you have a day when you more or less coast through it! Eventually the teacher retires with a lifetime pension, partially paid for by the business owner.
The business owner on the other hand, often works for many many more years and may or may not be able to retire. Retirement may rest in the hope that somebody might come along and want to take over or purchase the business. No guarantees, more risk!!
So, I don’t have a problem telling government to stay out of my pockets! I take the risk and I don’t feel like sharing with those that assume little risk! The rewards of my hard work belong to ME, so please don’t think that I feel any obligation to pay more taxes!
If my business fails, nobody sheds a tear for me! If I bust my butt and make a success out of my business, why should I share!
The harder I work, the greater the chance of success and more money in my pocket. It seems to me that the BCTF is always fighting for smaller class sizes. If this reduces the workload on it’s members, then why are they asking for more money? More money for less work?? Must be nice!!!
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