Hey fassbender what dream world do you live in? The teachers have been open to negotiations all summer.

that’s not true seamut!

The BCTF and the teachers were far too busy out on the picket line, all summer long, to have had time to meet for negotiations!

Every time that I drove by a school this summer, I saw a huge hoard of teachers out there, picketing, picketing, picketing!!

I was amazed at their dedication, for all of them to be out there, absolutely every day, all summer long, in the sun, in the rain, in the wind, picketing, picketing, picketing!!

;-)

Yeah the TF was so open to negotiations that Vince Ready walked out on them. Doesn’t sound like someone who is willing to negotiate to me. Sounds more like someone who said this is what we want and we aren’t doing anything until we get it.

Editor’s note:
This comment has been removed because of the personal attack on another poster.

Elaine Macdonald

Moose- I do not recall Vince Ready making a public or private statement suggesting it was the BCTF he walked away from. Do you have information about him walking out because of the BCTF ? If you do have the info please share it!!

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Editor’s note:
This comment has been edited to remove the personal attack
Elaine Meisner

And the government was so ready to negotiate that Vince never even met with them. Hart guy just gates teachers, must be mad at himself for his career choice.. There are people to help you with your low self esteem hart guy.

It was on CBC news that he walked out on a meeting with the TF at 1pm that day.

Iker does not want to go back to the bargaining table. All he could say on the news about 15 times was the government should agree to full scale mediation. Maybe Iker is too far away from the news lately and doesn’t realize the mediator Vince Ready says they are too far apart for mediation. I am not sure what kind of space cadet we have here.

Iker is still stuck on 100 million extra pay for teachers for prep time, what he earlier called money for composition. He wants the 5,000 signing bonus to cover lost wages over the last year without a wage increase (So, that would make the 4,000 signing bonus in 2005 a wage increase of about 5% on top of any other wage increases they have had}

He says their proposal is cheap, when you crunch the numbers it is only 3 dollars per day per student. Then goes on to say of course it will be an expensive fix… who is this guys speech writer?

Still does not clarify one percent apart on salary. He says BCPSEA has not moved during the talks. BCPSEA was at 5.5 percent and Iker was at 7.5 percent. Is this guy a math teacher or did the government move on the wage increase contrary to what Iker spews?

Not sure what he is talking about when he says they are asking for a 175 million dollar fund because the LIF only hired teachers who were laid off and did not change class sizes…??? What did these teachers do? Sit in the lunch room all day? Make some sense Iker, please hire a speech writer with the money from your emergency fund from other unions.

He says teachers are still locked out? Doesn’t he read the news back on earth? What planet is he on, even I know the lockout has been lifted? Oh, right…he says he never got a memo

I am not too happy about this. I have a grade 12’r that may loose out big time. With out alot of options I may have to send her to live with her aunt out of province. So much for family first Premier Clark; mine may have to break up because of this.

Come on you guys, get your —- together and settle this. By the way, since the tax payers are not receiving the educational benefit, will we be seeing a rebate on the taxes that are designated for education?

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Editor’s note, this comment has been edited to remove foul language.

Oh great another miss informed poster.Slinky what does this statement say?

He says he has confirmed with BCPSEA that it will “unilaterally extend its commitment to forego all lock out activities until further notice.”

No Pval maybe he has issues with BAD teachers. Why should I blindly support teachers who shouldn’t be teachers or support a system that allows these bad teachers to continue doing the damage the do on a daily basis? If only you witnessed the things I witnessed and experienced the things I experienced in school at the hands of teachers and how I have personally witnessed and experienced those same things happening to this day then maybe you would understand where others are coming from.

Well moose. You really are not great at showing the readers the statement Ready that walked out on the BCTF. He did say the two parties are to far apart though.

Maybe you should contact the CBC and correct them then if you feel what they said is incorrect.

Vince Ready did meet with Peter Cameron and because they both are professionals it only took a short meeting for both to understand where things stand. Because the tf uses people who raise their hand at some union convention to sit on their side of the table they haven’t got a clue on how the process works hence the reason Ready headed for the hills.

I wonder how long it will take to sink in that they will not get more that the 150,000 workers who have all ready signed. First September payday rapidly approaching with a big fat zero on the deposit-city utility bill due on the 19th so there goes another $500 out the window.

Why doesn’t Fassbender just meet with the BCTF without a precondition of ending the strike? Surely, if he really wants to end the strike he could meet and present something to the BCTF that would indicate movement towards a common centre. Why all the public grandstanding?

Baffling – what would the BCTF lose? Money starts flowing in, they can coast until the Appeal Court rules, and once they get their victory confirmed – and I do believe BCTF will win this – everyone knows the game. The only thing I think BCTF is rightly concerned about, is if the government loses, and has to pay a huge settlement, they’ll take the position that they can’t afford to give the teacher’s anything at all, because they can’t afford it anymore. By hanging on, BCTF hopes to get a raise, and what the court victory would give them. So, it’s not really for the kids, as much as it is, for the BCTF to get their cake and eat it too. It’s too bad Glen Clark signed a contract he shouldn’t have, it’s too bad Christy Clark didn’t honour it, but it’s even worse that kids are caught in the middle of a massive power play.

8, I can read the news just like everyone else, too bad Iker can’t

Here you go 8, Iker says he didn’t get the memo. I don’t have to get a memo from the BCPSEA, all I have to do is read the news

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/fassbender-confirms-teacher-lockout-lifted-asks-again-for-suspended-strike-1.1991629

yup moose we get it. Thats why I fired my doctor. That’s why I flipped that truck driver the bird the other day because he was driving like an idiot. I’d like to fire who ever is taking $40.00 out of the education tax fund and paying day care for stay at home parents. I could go on and on. Teachers are not all good but there are more good ones than bad ones. That I know for sure.

ammonra they already made moves to the center and put all the cards on the table including a signing bonus to get a deal done, the BCTF rejected it and went on strike. Now the BCTF drops 150 million from a billion dollar deficit and thinks that should do it

8: “I’d like to fire who ever is taking $40.00 out of the education tax fund and paying day care for stay at home parents.”

So you’re in favour of the payments for working parents. And why are teachers entitled to that money when they’re on strike? That might have been the way past governments did business, but those days are over. Time for Iker and the BCTF to wake up and smell the coffee on many fronts.

This is great news! The teachers want to get back to work. There union has hung them out to dry as pawns in a political power play.
Can someone remind me how many seats the ndp won in the last election?
This is just the bctf trying to make up for the ndp slaying by the libs.

Like I said slinky the liberals are no different then that idiot trying to run away from the cops, they are all criminals

BC Better anti up slinky. Love how Christy and Fassbender compare the 150,000 other public sector unions to the BCFT. Oranges to apples.

B.C. teachers compare to the rest of the country. The results are based on the average teachers’ salary at the beginning of their career and 10 years into their career.

On average, our province is in the middle compared to the rest of Canada, sitting at $49,410, but new teachers in Alberta make the most at $58,500.

Once a teacher gets 10 years of experience, the differences in salaries appear more drastic between provinces.

In Alberta, teachers make $99,300 on average and B.C. teachers make about $81,500 after a decade of experience, which translates to a 60 per cent increase in salary in 10 years.

8: “BC Better anti up slinky. Love how Christy and Fassbender compare the 150,000 other public sector unions to the BCFT. Oranges to apples.”

There is only one taxpayer. If conditions are so much more favourable in other provinces, why do we have a surplus of teachers in BC?

As slinky says, how long will it take before the BCTF realizes it’s not special and will get a deal in line with everyone else. Hopefully not too long.

Thanks to Christy 40000 teachers are not contributing to the economy and need bank loans and getting more in debt. Good job, well done.

johnnybelt

Liberals are so fiscally responsible for our tax dollars that they did not even require a licensed day care receipt to ensure our school tax dollars are actually being used for daycare. If I was a single parent with 3 kids under the age of 13 on social assistance with addiction issues. YAHOO.

I wonder if Christy really cares about the 40,000 parents more or less really care about the education that the kids are getting, well you know know.

8: “Liberals are so fiscally responsible for our tax dollars that they did not even require a licensed day care receipt to ensure our school tax dollars are actually being used for daycare.”

Hey, great idea. Maybe we can get all of the welfare and social assistance recipients in BC to submit receipts for all of their expenses to make sure they’re spending the money appropriately.

In a perfect world JB, in a perfect world

There you have it. The Premier has spoken. She is testing a hypothesis. The BCTF dispute is “insoluable.” One everyone has a bath, we”ll find out.

Interesting how the TF is always looking for ways to show us how they are special and deserve MORE than the other public sector workers in BC. Here is a newsflash…you arn’t special, and you don’t deserve more. You are a public servant, and your wage is covered by OUR tax dollars. The fact that teachers in some other provinces earn more is specious…teachers in some provinces earn a lot less, do not have benefits, and are not allowed to strike. Should we be rolling back teachers wages to equal the lowest in the country? Using the TF’s logic an arguement could be made to support that position. Another poster asked the question if teachers are so much better of in Alberta, why are teachers from the rest of Canada not flocking there? Why are teachers from BC not flocking there?
The TF has consistantly stated that this impasse is about the kids..but we have all seen that it is about 2 totally unrelated issues…one is greed..or a superiority complex, and the other is about who controls the education system. The TF beleives that they and only they should dictate how the system operates, the only government involvement that they want is by way of an endless supply of ????? for them to spend as they wish. Get over yourselves, settle for a compensation package equal to what 150,000 other public servants have accepted, and then if you truly are interested in making things better for our kids negotiate for increased resources in our schools and classrooms.

Here’s one the will give all you teacher haters a cardiac. The district CUPE workers are getting 75 bucks a day missed work and once the teachers are settled will get back pay for the time forced out. I am told it’s in their contract so if true it shows the fiberals where gunning for the teachers students be dammed. Fiberals did not count on the teachers staying.

Funny how you’re labeled a ‘teacher hater’ if you don’t subscribe to the BCTF union rhetoric.

Censor 250news!

I liked it better when they deleted the posts instead of the Maury bleeps we get now.

Rally tonight at 6pm in front of Shirley’s office! Come and block some traffic! Support the teachers, see you there!

Of course he does…
if the union goes back to work now and later goes back out on the line because the governmnet doesn’t live up to their end, and they won’t, he will throw all the blame on the teachers saying they really don’t care about students as they went back to work and then went back out on the picket line….
nice ploy
I dont think the union is that stupid, or I at least hope not.
I’ll keep taking them coffee and food, stay out until this is solved.

AS for the Rally in fron t of Bond’s Office.. I’ll pretty much guarantee she won’t be there… she never is. That is what you get for warning her…

riddle me this….

according to the bctf there were 549,000 students in 2012. Rounding up even though there has been decreased enrollment in SD57, lets use the number of 550,000 students.

Divided by 40,000 teachers that equals…..13.75 students per teacher.

Why not protest at the office of Mike Morris ? At least you can get a burger or a pizza there.

Do really think Shirley would be there any day at 6pm? They need to pick somewhere to rally why not there?

Let’s be clear. The $75 CUPE is getting is strike pay, and it comes directly from their union and is deducted from CUPE pay cheques as union dues. It is not tax payer’s money.

@seamutt – only if the members ratify the contract! 1% a year and not much else!

Slinky said, “ammonra they already made moves to the center and put all the cards on the table including a signing bonus to get a deal done, the BCTF rejected it and went on strike. Now the BCTF drops 150 million from a billion dollar deficit and thinks that should do it”.

Thank you for acknowledging that the signing bonus was the government’s idea. Perhaps now the teacherphobes will stop blaming them for what the government offered.

I am not sure what the billion dollar deficit refers to. I thought the government was proclaiming a balanced budget or a surplus. Are you saying the government lied?

You actually missed or ignored my point, by design or accident I don’t know. My point was that there is no reason which is stopping Fassbender from meeting with the BCTF without insisting on a precondition on the teachers’ side. Just meet and keep meeting until it there is progress. Bring in a mediator when it may be useful, but meet and talk to each other. That is, after all, what we pay the government for, and handsomely too.

I’m not gonna sit here and lay blame to any of this mess. I think both sides needs to put the kids first and cut out the excuses.

An interesting letter written by a therapist that puts things into perspective.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/alyson-jones/bc-teachers-strike-divorce_b_5496009.html

The $75 for CUPE is strike pay which is deducted from CUPE member’s pay cheques as union dues. It does not come from the BC government and is not tax payer’s money.

Where are we at now 16,18,20 months of talks and no end in sight. What I as a taxpayer in this province would like to see in black and white is the total proposal the bctf has put forward to the government conversly the proposal the government has put to the bctf. I know a few teachers and they do not know what the bctf leaders are asking for in its entirety.To me it seems prudent that both parties in this dispute come clean and present the facts to” US” the taxpayers. We are the ones that are going to pay the bill. To me it is no different than going to the grocery store and putting a cartload of grocieries on the belt and instead of scanning every item the clerck says that will be $ 198.05 with no backup.Sure we will get through this.Like my mother said she and her family lived on potatoes and sasktoons for a couple of years during the Depression but they made it and here we are today with our children and grandchildren caught up in in a dispute over money, but guess what our kids will prevail. Hows that guys tear it up

I understand the commentary around starting teacher and 10 year experienced teacher wages being less than the national average. What I don’t understand is why the comparison is always to those categories and to wages only? I would think it would be more valuable to compare average teacher total compensation across the country as I understand there to be a disparity in benefits to BC teachers relative to the rest of the country. It would also capture any disparity in experience (ie. jurisdictions with longer serving teachers could be artificially skewed in a detrimental measurement of total provincial cost per teacher).

Nytehawk and Johnny well said. A referendum would put the teachers back to teaching in no time at all.

“The $75 for CUPE is strike pay which is deducted from CUPE member’s pay cheques as union dues. It does not come from the BC government and is not tax payer’s money.”

I’m going to call BS on that statement Summer. CUPE wages are paid for by tax payers. What happens after the cheque is divvied up, doesn’t matter. It was still tax payer’s money to begin with. Even if you bought milk. You bought it with taxpayers money.

Ammonra the signing bonus went away when they didn’t sign, that is why it is called a signing bonus not a contract bonus

The BCTF dropped 150 million from its own billion dollar contract additions and slapped its hands together and said “that should do it, where do I sign?”

And the government offered what in return when the teachers made the first concession… Nothing.

Once money is paid for services provided it ceases to be the property of the payer and becomes the property of the payee. CUPE members, and all other public sector employees of all kinds, own the money they are paid. It is their money, not the taxpayers. Its no different from me buying groceries from Superstore, the money I pay becomes theirs, it does not stay as mine. I own the groceries, they own the money I paid.

Slinky, obviously the signing bonus did not go away. It is still on the table according to many of the teacherphobes on this site. I find it interesting, though, that you acknowledge that the BCTF reduced its demands. Now its the government’s turn.

JB if walks like a duck, well you get it.

Also I didn’t miss your point ammonra. The point is Iker wants to go to mediated talks, his whole press conference and news interviews yesterday were about mediated talks “why won’t they agree to mediated talks?”. Vince Ready already walked away until they get closer to a deal, he has to actually talk to the BCPSEA negotiators. THAT is why he has no date for negotiations and not the “everyone is ignoring me” excuse. Neither Vince Ready nor Glen Clark will step in to move the deal through legislation bypassing the negotiating step.

Like I said before, Iker couldn’t negotiate himself out of a paper bag. “They have had all summer to hammer out a deal” is no excuse – Iker also has had all summer to work on a workable contract, and now he will have all fall to do it too

Loads of B.S last winter it was the city workers whining about not making enough money. Everyone had to shovel or snow blow there own streets most of the winter till the city workers got what they wanted.
Now the teachers are dictating the same way. I am sorry but this kind of mentality has to change or were does it end.
The tax payers and the children are loosing their rights! Rights for services they pay for as well as a fair education for their children!
Criminal charges should be laid against both CUPE and the BCTF their disruption in services as well as the disruption in education.

The signing bonus is only on the table on the BCTF side, Iker is not allowing it to go away. He wants to use it as back pay for last year according to his press release.

You have your fingers in your ears and are singing “lalalalalala” through all this aren’t you ammonra? The government/BCPSEA already moved on their side back when they offered a signing bonus with a deadline. That deadline has passed. Just because Iker decides to drop a few million from his billions in demands doesn’t mean it is the ‘governments turn’. Only to the BCTF it does. Get closer to a workable deal and you may see a bit more movement on the BCPSEA side and maybe Vince will come back to the table.

Slinky, Thank you for acknowledging that the signing bonus is, indeed, still on the table.

I do not presuppose what the teachers or the government will do. Eventually there will have to be a settlement by some means. There is no option to that. I just believe that parties who disagree should meet and talk to each other, without preconditions. Unfortunately, the government side is the one with the precondition, constantly repeating that the BCTF should bring their demands into the government’s comfort zone and then they can meet and negotiate. There should be no preconditions. They should meet even if there appears on the surface to be no hope of agreement. If they do, sooner or later one or other will modify their stance.

I also find your tritely snide comments about my fingers and ears and the “lalalalalala” childish and offensive. Get over yourself and grow up.

Posted on Thursday, September 4, 2014 @ 7:04 PM by poor gold miner

I know a few teachers and they do not know what the bctf leaders are asking for in its entirety.
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They haven’t taken the effort to find out then. 3 ways it can be done.

1. Go ask your local president. They will show you.
2. Go onto the members portal. Both sides full offers, listed proposal by proposal are listed there and update each time they are formally submitted.
3. In my district staff reps were given an email with a breakdown of the most recent offers from each side. It had items crossed out, and italics for any new language added since the last one. Staff reps were to forward this to the private email of any teacher that has supplied their address to the staff rep.

I am unsure why you keep saying that I acknowledge the signing bonus is still on the table. I am not in on the negotiations and as far as I know on the BCPSEA side the signing bonus has expired. Iker however still wants a signing bonus which he refers to as back pay – which is not actually what a signing bonus is. This is what I am referring to with the fingers in the ears, I do NOT acknowledge the signing bonus is still on the table, as far as I know it is gone with the deadline.

Ask Smooth, apparently he can look it up for you.

The bottom line is the Government broke the law not once but twice. This is about all workers rights!

The government has not made a change to any of their proposals since June. That was before the signing bonus expired.

If the government doesn’t want a signing bonus, and want to give 5.5 over 5. Should it be retroactive?

Hit enter too soon.

A retroactive 1% is worth way more than a one time $5000 bonus that is heavily taxed.

Smooth

Riddle me this. Iker says it is not even about wages as they are only 1 year and 1 percent apart

BCTF is asking for 7.5 over 5 – BCPSEA is offering 5.5 over 6

How is that 1 percent apart? 5.5 over 6 is a minimum 2 percent apart but more like 4.6 over 5 or closer to 3 percent apart. Maybe there is some compounding I am missing here?

The bonus is only heavily taxed when it is handed out because the monthly take home is higher, although in this case it makes no difference. At year end it becomes income and is taxed at the going rate same as an increase in wages. 1 percent increase is paid every year as it is now part of the wage, even at the lowest scale it overtakes the one time bonus Iker is asking for ten years later

Slinky, you said, “The signing bonus is only on the table on the BCTF side”

Whether it is “only” on the table on the BCTF side or not, it is still on the table and will remain on the table until BOTH sides take it off. If you actually mean that the government side withdrew their offer because their deadline for accepting it had passed, then say that. There is still a possibility that the final agreement may include it since the BCTF have it as one of their tabled items.