Gee can we chop 10% off what we pay the governement for work they aren’t doing?

I think its crazy they are still arguing about class sizes. Wow, the province still hasn’t even figured that out yet? That should be a set standard by now one would think.

Whats this mean?
“their total compensation demands are still about four times more than the settlements reached at other tables”

Is this a Fassbender over grammatical hyperbole? Really four times the ‘total’ compensation demands of other tables? Or is it more likely four times the ‘incremental’ compensation demands? If so what are the base levels used in comparison for ‘total compensation’.

From an independent critical eye I call BS from Fassbender on the four times compensation level. Making it political, or possibly vindictive surely doesn’t help matters much.

I think if they just try to respect each other and come out at under 2% per year… supposed inflation level target of the central bankers. If it doesn’t work out for the teachers, maybe have them explain to the students how central banking works on the economy.

At some point will some media person please ask Factbender how much money the BCLibs have committed to class size/composition? All he ever talks about is how generous their government’s wage offer is, never tells us what $$ they have committed to fixing an issue they have twice lost in court.

Oh, and opinion 250,the last sentance in your story “The Province had sliced 10% off the May paychecks of teachers saying they were not doing work they are supposed to be doing” is factually incorrect.

Funny how governments can throw comparative numbers around like that.
They don’t seem to mind raising their own salaries by huge amounts at their whim and not based on any need at all.
Duplicity, deceitfulness and arrogance.

Just to emphasize the BCTF has not decided to escalate to a full strike yet. They have decided to conduct another strike vote. It is the members who will decide whether to escalate to a full strike. It is called making democratic decisions. It is the member teachers who will decide, not the organization.

I would vote that they pull right out of the system and see what happens. I think it’s nuts that the government doesn’t bargain directly with the teachers. Who the hell is this PCPC thing? Are they voted in, do they represent me the taxpayer? Who are they and what do they do. If they get their marching orders from Fassbender and Clark, then get Fassbender and Clark in those meetings and get a deal done. This has just as big an effect on society as the truckers strike at the Vancouver docks.

A $1200 signing bonus alone is $48 Million when multiplied by 40,000 BCTF members. And people want to complain about a couple MLA raises?

How much will teacher raises cost taxpayers as a lump sum? That’s the figure I want to see.

I say quit! Every single member of the BCTF should quit their job, en masse, and completely shut down the education system in this province. Stupid idea, right? Well, maybe not…

1. You can’t legislate employees back to work if there aren’t any employees;
2. If there’s no membership to represent, then there’s no reason for the BCTF to go to the bargaining table;

Maintain the status quo until the end of this school year. Then, on the day AFTER the last day of school, serve the Premier and her minister with notice that every teacher in the province has submitted their resignation and, as a result, there is no need for further bargaining or negotiations. It’s not an illegal strike or a job action, it’s just 40,000+ teachers deciding to quit their jobs due to unsuitable working conditions and stress. There won’t be any protests or rallies because the teachers have simply “moved on”. As a group, they should simply go completely silent and enjoy retirement. I’m wondering how Service Canada would respond to receiving 40,000 EI applications? A court finding an employer to have not bargained in good faith and then ignoring the ruling may be considered harassment and reasonable cause for a person to quit a job. It’s also a $2+ billion hit to a Federal Program that won’t make many people in Ottawa very happy…)

As September nears, a sudden panic will set in and Joe and Jane Public will want to know why their kids won’t be going to school. It won’t be because of a strike or a lock out. Unfortunately, there are 40,000 vacant teaching positions in the province that can’t be filled. The government is required, by law, to provide a public education system and they simply won’t be able to do that. A court ruling will show that the government refused to bargain in good faith and it resulted in a breakdown of the entire bargaining process, and ultimately the resignation of teachers province wide. People have a right to quit their jobs.

People want their kids to go to school and I imagine there would be very little appetite for the government to continue with it’s current practice of intimidation and blatant disregard for the law. In fact, I think the Premier would have no choice but to submit her own resignation. The complete breakdown of an education system surely justifies a lack of confidence in her ability to lead. With a soft hold on the TFW program at the federal level, it won’t be so easy to simply replace 40,000+ employees with poorly versed non-English teachers from other parts of the world.
If you complain because it takes 40,000+ teachers to deal with all of those kids we had over the years, stop having kids.
Teachers will be in high demand when a single province needs to fill 40,000+ vacant positions. With that demand will come huge pay raises and signing bonuses as in-demand teachers will be wooed to districts that have the money to pay.

“Class size and composition are also on table and need to be negotiated” adds Fassbender.

Most people know that class size and composition are the sticking point in these negotiations. They have lost two times in court and they do not want to lose again.Who is holding up the appeal? Fassbender wants to negotiate through the summer.Teachers would look damm stupid picketing in front of a school when students are not in attendance.

Money for Olympics, Money for Games, Money for MLA raises, Money for staffer’s raises, money for drug addiction problems, Money for Policing, Money for roofs on sports venues but no money for educating our children. Doesn’t make any sense to me.

“And people want to complain about a couple MLA raises?”
JohnnyBelt, it’s more about leading by example or the sense of entitlement people get once they’re elected.
Also as Give more stated regarding the Liberals:

“Duplicity, deceitfulness and arrogance.”

PGGuy: “Money for Olympics, Money for Games, Money for MLA raises, Money for staffer’s raises, money for drug addiction problems, Money for Policing, Money for roofs on sports venues but no money for educating our children. “

You’re kidding right? The education system, right along with Medical are the two biggest items on the Provincial Budget… and education wants an even bigger slice of the pie. How much of a tax increase are you willing to take to support the teachers?

The problem with the teacher’s quitting scenario, is nothing could make the government happier. Across the country there’s unemployed teachers – who have just graduated – including right here in B.C. If all the teacher’s quit, BCTF would lose it’s certification, and anyone could take those teaching jobs and you couldn’t call them scabs. 12,000 BCTF members didn’t even vote in the strike vote – which could indicate, once the union is gone, they would be willing to work, and of the teachers that did vote, 3000 voted no to a strike. So we potentially have 15,000 teachers who don’t agree with the BCTF.

My take on this, is the government has made it’s best offer, and will likely only make cosmetic changes to help the BCTF save face. I don’t think the BCTF is smart enough to realize this, and will let loose the dogs of war and create chaos. I think this time though, because of the court decision, the government will choose to do nothing, and wait it out. In a sense, the government would be doing it for the kids, future kids, because if the BCTF takes this to the mat, and loses, you’ll never see another teacher’s strike ever, because the BCTF will be broken, and future kids, won’t have to worry about strikes.

Enough to make sure that the system stays public and isn’t turned into a race to the bottom for kids and a race to the top for private schools.

I like PGGuy’s ieda of the teachers quitting. Then the BCTF can be disbanded and they can hire the teachers back who actually want to work. Missing a few paychecks would be a motivating force for many.

Spending my tax dollars on ego strokes and corporate welfare isn’t in anyone’s interest except the major corporations who win the contracts to build the “New Rome”. What do these monoliths accomplish? Keeping a bunch of people dry at a football game.

I’ll pay my school taxes and pay the teachers to teach. I’m not paying for my kid’s education. Today I’m paying for the education that I got 35+ years ago.

“Posted by: ski50 on June 5 2014 10:32 AM

The problem with the teacher’s quitting scenario, is nothing could make the government happier. Across the country there’s unemployed teachers – who have just graduated – including right here in B.C. If all the teacher’s quit, BCTF would lose it’s certification, and anyone could take those teaching jobs and you couldn’t call them scabs. 12,000 BCTF members didn’t even vote in the strike vote – which could indicate, once the union is gone, they would be willing to work, and of the teachers that did vote, 3000 voted no to a strike. So we potentially have 15,000 teachers who don’t agree with the BCTF.

My take on this, is the government has made it’s best offer, and will likely only make cosmetic changes to help the BCTF save face. I don’t think the BCTF is smart enough to realize this, and will let loose the dogs of war and create chaos. I think this time though, because of the court decision, the government will choose to do nothing, and wait it out. In a sense, the government would be doing it for the kids, future kids, because if the BCTF takes this to the mat, and loses, you’ll never see another teacher’s strike ever, because the BCTF will be broken, and future kids, won’t have to worry about strikes.”

I disagree with the first comment regarding that this is what the government wants. There isn’t a teacher shortage because if there was, they would get the money they ask for. Trades people get paid big money when they are in demand because of shortages. I would like to see where in Canada there is a teacher shortage. Who would want to come to BC and teach in this environment?

JonnyBelt it’s not about how much of an increase in taxes you are willing to pay it’s about the government priorities where they want to spend our tax dollars that they already have and it appears education is not one of them.

Google – “unemployed teachers Canada”. Not sure if what I wrote is what you understood. I don’t believe there is a teacher shortage, there’s a teacher surplus – which means, if all teacher’s quit, the ones that couldn’t get a job, would be able to, so I don’t think you’d have the great void you’d expect when they all quit. The fact that there are students still pursuing teaching as a career in university, in light of the lack of employment opportunities, indicates teachers are very well paid, because people are still going into debt – on the hope of becoming one.

I think Christy Clark may not have a university education, but she very well may be the smartest political animal to come onto the political scene since WAC Bennett. She won an election that surprised even her supporters, and now she’s managed to take on the BCTF, in the beginning of her mandate, so that no matter how nasty this gets, it will all be forgotten in 3.5 years. She has a very winnable position in all this – “we offered them, what everyone else got, and it wasn’t enough, and we weren’t willing to cut other programs, or raise taxes, to give them what they wanted.”

If the BCTF disbanded and they had half teachers, half parents at the negotiating table, there would never be any strikes.

It’s amazing how blatantly ridiculous some of these comments have become!!

Sure, let’s have all of the teachers in the Province quit en masse. Like that’s suggestion would really work!

Try to collect EI if you “quit” your job!! There would be absolutely no concern at Service Canada upon receiving 40,000 EI applications because Service Canada would simply respond with 40,000 “Sorry, you quit your job! Now go away!” responses!

“A court finding an employer to have not bargained in good faith and then ignoring the ruling may be considered harassment and reasonable cause for a person to quit a job.”

Yeah right, if that was the case, the employees would have or should have quit long ago. So much for that theory!!

“It’s also a $2+ billion hit to a Federal Program that won’t make many people in Ottawa very happy…)”??

Not at all, as mentioned above, there would be 40,000 denied claims!!

There is certainly no shortage of teachers in BC or Canada for that matter! In response to suggestions that they should all quit, perhaps we should ask Government to fire them all, aka Ronald Reagan and the U.S.A. Air Traffic Controllers! Remember how well that worked out for the Air Traffic Controllers. They were lining up to get their jobs back!!

Yup, just imaging 40,000 BC teachers, suddenly without their pay cheques, having to pay their BC Medical Premiums, having to pay their dental and medical costs, not being paid to stay home sick, no pension plan, etc, etc, etc! Yeah, like that’s really going to happen!

The BCTF executive is completely out of touch with reality and completely out of touch with the average working person in BC. Jim Iker and the BCTF has drawn a line in the sand, without realizing that they are standing in quick sand and are rapidly running out of rescue ropes!

Jim, don’t ask me to throw you a life line, I’d be more than happy to stand aside and watch the quicksand swallow you up!! Moron!!

PGguy1234 said “I think it’s nuts that the government doesn’t bargain directly with the teachers.”

I think that is a very good point. However, it should apply to all public sector bargaining. Instead the government sets up groups, gives them a fancy name, then dictates pay rates through them by telling them what to do. It must be a nice, cushy snuffle at public money to be appointed as a director of one of those groups, I would have thought, with nice pay and no responsibility.

Does anybody remember why the BCTF is a registered trade union? Wasn’t it because it was rammed down teachers’ throats by a previous BC government, despite warnings of the consequences? I seem to remember that neither teachers nor the BCTF wanted to be made a formal trade union. So who is responsible for the consequences we see now, then?

The idea of quitting en masse is simply floating an idea. I for one minute wouldn’t expect anything remotely similar happening. I get that. I also get that the union heads seem to be out of touch with what’s happening on the ground. If the government is taking 10% of the wage then where is strike pay in all of this. If the BCTF coffers are empty because the union is spending all of their war chest on litigation, someone at union head office needs to be fired and changes need to be made at the top.

ammonra, I wonder how many teachers there are that think that their salary and benefit package is pretty decent??

I also wonder how many teachers are looking at the amount that is deducted each month for Union Dues and are wondering what on earth they are doing wasting their money??

By the way, does anybody here know exactly how much each teacher pays per month to the BCTF??

About $1,800.00 a year.

Wow, this is going to be nasty.

HartGuy, I have no idea how many teachers think they earn enough. A minority, I imagine, since the majority voted in favour of a strike in a democratic strike vote with a percentage turnout in excess of those who voted in the last election. I would imagine every teacher looks at the amount of union dues they pay. I know I did when my union (HSA) dues were paid, and I thought it was worth every penny, as the majority of teachers obviously do by their voting in support of their union.

About $1,800.00 per year! At 40,000 teachers, that’s a tidy little sum every year for the BCTF!

Tidy little sum as in $72,000,000.00 per year collected in dues! That’s 72 MILLION dollars!!

Surely I can’t be the only one convinced that long ago Unions stopped being Unions and just became “BIG BUSINESS” just like the Big Businesses that the lefties love to hate!!

Is it any wonder that the BCTF is fighting for smaller class sizes. Hire another 1,000 teachers and collect another $1,800,000.00 in dues each and every year!!

Hey, but it’s for the Kids!!

Ammonra, your Union leaders have to justify their salaries, their positions, heck their very existance!

So, if the employer was to grant absolutely everything that the Union demanded, there might be cheers from the Union and jubilation from the membership. However, it wouldn’t take long for the Union Leaders to start complaining that it wasn’t enough. Like a slow spreading disease, they will start to instill dissent among the membership.

How and why you might ask?

Simple! They now have to justify their ongoing purpose. So, while they might have achieved everything that they wanted at the bargaining table, it won’t take long before the leadership starts saying that they should have gotten more!!

For example, if a contract is settled for 10% over 4 years, it won’t take long for the Union Leaders to start spouting off to the membership “Hey, we got you 10%, but golly gee and gosh darn it all, you deserved 12%. The darn employer screwed all of you again!!

Soon, instead of feeling good about getting a 10% raise, the members will soon start to act like little lemmings, all complaining that the employer screwed them over, because the Union Leadership is correct, they deserved 12%!!

Hey, the Union Leadership has to justify itself, doesn’t it!! Got you 12%, but you deserved 14%! Got you 14% and more benefits, but you deserved 16% and more benefits.

It just never ends! Perhaps that’s why we are quickly becoming a society of have’s and have not’s, Public Sector employees with high salaries and benefits and the rest of the population struggling to get by while being forced to pay for the tab for the Public Sector!

Ammonra, go ahead, tell me that I’m wrong! You and I both know that I am far more right than I am wrong about this!!

I understand that the 1200.00 “bonus” the govt is offering to teachers is only to be given if teachers recant the two supreme court wins.

taxpayerteacher, I’ve not read or heard any such thing!

Clearly your reasons for making an unsubstantiated statement like this is solely for the purpose of attempting to garner more support for teachers, at a time when support is likely rapidly diminishing as more and more people become more educated about how well off BCTF members are!!

I am very surprised that this time around, the BCTF isn’t asking for 10 paid days off for members who’s pet dies, or 5 days off if any pet in the neighbourhood dies.

Oops, I better shut up! Don’t want to give the BCTF any ideas!

I see the rational, level headed people tend to post early in the morning, before 10:00 am on this topic.

After 10:00 am, the minority anti-teacher pro-government crowd starts into their gnashing of teeth comments.

When I say minority pro-government crowd, I am of course referring to an Insights West poll released May 15th which revealed over 60 per cent of British Columbians polled were unhappy with how the government was handling teacher negotiations. Another 23 per cent were pleased with the government’s bargaining so far, while 14 per cent were unsure.

I have to admit, there are not too many of you minority 23% on this discussion thread, but my-o-my you are vocal, aren’t you ;-)

So… as I read yet another comment from JB on how us BC taxpayers cannot afford another tax increase to pay for teacher salary increases, that we are already straining under an enormous tax burden, I offer this:

“BC has the lowest tax rate for personal income tax to $118,000 income annually. BC has the lowest corporate / business tax rate in the G7 countries”. Hey I have an idea… maybe these provincial Con-Libs should raise the taxes and use the revenue to fund our public education system above its poverty stricken pathetic state!

After all, according to JB’s Lib-Con government, we pay the lowest taxes in Canada, and in the G7 apparently, we can afford it, right JB? :-)

http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2010fin0073-001582.htm

Funny this about this poll BH, Peeps, People#1 or whoever you are today!

The poll stated that 63% thought that the Government had done a bad job in this file, BUT it didn’t ask if the 63% support teachers or if the 63% would prefer that the Government take a much firmer stance with the BCTF.

I for one, would also fall into the 63% who think that the Government has handled this file poorly. However, I fall into this category because I think that the Government needs to get a lot tougher and kick the BCTF into oblivion!

So much for your poll, eh Peeps, BH, BS, People#1 or whoever you are!

By the way BH, I’m wondering if because you use several monikers on this site, did you by chance vote on the poll, several times using all of your different aliases??

Speaking of different aliases, I’ll aske again, why did you change your moniker??

Hart Guy-Better look up and down the street outside your house and make sure that there is not a really strange individual sitting in a car with a laptop packet sniffing your wifi connection in order to discover your new 250News password.

Lowest taxes in the nation is something to celebrate, unless you want more and more for doing less and less in other words a pubic(sic) sector union member. If the teachers want more money then move some of their over the top pension into salary.

Peeps, would that really strange individual sitting in a car outside my house be you?? Again?? Come on Peeps, don’t you think that it’s time for you to get a life, maybe finally move out of your mother’s basement, maybe get a job??

BH, since you like polls so much, plese be my guest and follow the link below to a very recent poll asked at the end of the following article:

OPINION: BCTF AND THE ART OF USING KIDS AS LEVERAGE

This is a very interesting opinion and reasonable opinion piece Peeps, so you might not like it!!

The poll at the bottom of the article asks a simple question, “Are the BCTF’s demands reasonable?”

When I looked at the poll results a few minutes ago, the results were:

54.18% No
36.91% Yes
8.91% Undecided

So, based on this poll, almost 55% believe that the BCTF demands are reasonable!

Here’s the link to this article and poll:

http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2014/06/bctf-and-the-art-of-using-kids-as-leverage/

Like I said Peeps, polls don’t really mean much, after all according to the polls, your wonderful Adrian Dix and your marvelous NDP were going to decimate the Liberals at the last election!! Please tell me again, how did the last election work out for you?

Hart Guy: “Ammonra, go ahead, tell me that I’m wrong!”

You’re wrong!

Hart Guy: “Ammonra, your Union leaders have to justify their salaries, their positions, heck their very existance!”

As, indeed, does every person in the world who works for someone else, including the illustrious Christy and all her henchpersons. The fact is that almost anything can be distorted and twisted around to support any pre-existing opinion, as you do so well, but some things are incontrovertable. The teachers were awarded 2 million dollars of taxpayers’ money because the courts said they bargained in bad faith with the teachers and tried to force a strike. Look at the current dispute as more of the same bad faith. Any group that has dozens of spin doctors on the public payroll has no right to criticize any other group. If they were forthright in what they did and treated teachers and others with respect instead of contempt they would not need so many people working so diligently justifying their high salaries trying ti whitewash the government negotiating practices.

Hart Guy: “I think that the Government needs to get a lot tougher and kick the BCTF into oblivion!”

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Your solution for solving the problems that have arisen from ramming stuff down teachers’ throats is to ram more stuff down teachers’ throats. How strange!

Ammonra, I’m of the opinion that we were much better off before the BCTF was created and forced upon teachers and us!! Some of my most respected “teacher” friends are of the same opinion.

Seems like the entire educational system, including contract negotiations were a lot smoother back then.

Perhaps you enjoy the never ending acrimony?

Ammonra, I’ve just read that Jim-Bob Iker, the head of the BCTF has announced that the BCTF Strike Fund is DRY!

From the Canadian Press:

“As British Columbia’s unionized teachers ponder whether to follow their leadership into a full-scale walkout, the union has admitted its war chest is empty and it won’t be able to dole out more strike pay.

The fund from which the union draws cash to subsidize teachers on the picket lines has been depleted and it can’t cover an escalating strike, states a memo on the union’s internal website.”

Holy Hannah Batman!!

The BCTF collects something like 70 MILLION dollars per year in dues! That’s $70 with 6 zeros behind it!

$70,000,000.00 in dues collected, each and every year and the BCTF Strike Fund is Dry??

If I was a BCTF member (not a hope in heck of that but if I was), I would be asking some really tough questions of my BCTF leadership!

The very first question would be:

“WHAT THE HECK DID YOU IDIOTS DO WITH ALL THAT MONEY??”

The office workers union that are employed in the bctf headquarters asked for and received an 8% annual raise in each of the last ten years. And because it was a union asking it therefore must be a reasonable demand so they ponyed up the dough….and now can’t quite figure out why the piggy-bank is empty.

If we are to believe that hacker who posted under Hart Guy last Friday; we are watching Hart Guy converse with himself under HumanBeing… interesting in a pathetic kind of way.

Sorry to disappoint you JGAlt, but it’s just me, posting as me and not posting as anyone else.

Nice of you to deflect attention away from my post about the BCTF’s Strike Fund drying up!

Does anyone see the irony of a Union demanding a wage increase that it thinks the people of this Province can afford, while at the same time the Union seems completely unable to manage it’s own financial affairs?

In spite of the fact that the BCTF collects something like $70,000,000.00 per year in dues from it’s members, it has no money left in it’s Strike Fund!!

That’s freaking hilarious!!