The BCTF should get rid of Iker. He’s clearly out of ideas.

Mr.Iker has no clue and is clearly desperate.

I don’t know why the government can’t simply construct a piece of legislation that effectively neuters whatever “class-size and composition” clauses that the BCTF wants returned, therefore rendering the entire argument moot.
Just add another layer of bureaucracy and a cap on funding and the BCTF can shuffle their members from school to school. Leave it up to them to figure out how to organize their pipe dream. It won’t be long before internal BCTF politics dictating where and who gets what has them all feeding on each other…

Johnny, if you want Iker out, then he is obviously doing a good job!

Jimmy, the Liberals have already done that twice and the courts rejected the legislation and awarded the BCTF $2 million. passing that kind of legislation again, especially right now, would be a clear insult to the courts and absolute evidence of bargaining in bad faith.

How much would this extra layer of bureaucracy cost the taxpayer? How many new people would be involved, how much would they be paid and where would they work? As to internal BCTF politics, it appears to me as a complete outsider that they are solidly behind Iker.

I’ve read a lot of posts by BCTF supporters taking other posters & the government to task on how to negotiate properly. Jim Iker & Co., when negotiating you do not throw insults at the party you are negotiating with. Neither do you issue threats through the media, that just gets the hackles up on the other party.
I do agree, Iker is not the right person for this. The BCTF should have hired a professinal to do the job. As was posted, it won’t be long before the internal bickering in the BCTF becomes external & ugly.

Why put something that the teachers have absolutely no control over to a vote, might as well vote if the sun should continue to rise in the east. With a legislated end to the dispute the ace in the employers pocket why risk an unaffordable end that arbitration could cause.

If Iker wants to put something to a vote how about asking if the last offer from goverment is enough to return to the table and end picketing while mediation resumes.Time for the tf to learn a lesson, how to reach a settlement the way a vast majority of other unions do, at the table.

In an interview with Squire Barnes Iker admitted that it would have been just as difficult to reach a settlement had Dix won the last election. Are you kidding me? The most left leaning person to ever take the reins of the ndp could not have signed a deal with these nutjobs.

It is no wonder that support from other unions both public and private has been lukewarm at best.

Good article on the Globe website, support is starting to crumble amoung teachers as the amount of money lost continues to mount, 14 grand so far for a teacher who had planned to teach summer school.

Quote from that teacher in article

““I feel like a soldier in the trenches of the First World War, congratulated for making a sacrifice I was duped into making,” he said.”

theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/financial-stress-acute-for-striking-bc-teachers/article20464048/

Posting actual link on new site is a pain in backside- C&P into address bar if interested in full article

ammonra: “Johnny, if you want Iker out, then he is obviously doing a good job!”

He’s doing such a good job that he’s going to have his members vote on something the government has already said is off the table. What a waste of time. He’s run out of cards to play. Time for some new blood.

Come on Government, get these kids back to school. If they even cared they would take the offer that the BCTF has mentions. Let a third party in to help….guess government doesn’t want that help. Selfish people they are.

Ever see a guy blinded by his own ego? Very sad.

What a laugh. The BCTF lost this negotiation before it began. This is about the “leadership” saving face, while facing an onslaught from an employer that so clearly has the unabashed support of a majority of the taxpaying public. The entire “class size” nonsense will be decided by the Supreme Court years down the road.
The BCTF knows this, they just tried a simple bait and switch scheme, while negotiating. Forgetting of course that preaching to the choir and ladling the Kool-Aid to the masses, doesn’t leave you qualified to see a negotiation through to its ultimate conclusion.
What the rank and file membership is hoping for is that they don’t have to lose yet another 5000 bucks wandering about the sidewalks under the guise of trying to “win” a 5000 dollar signing bonus. Simple arithmetic will prove losing 10,000 dollars of real pay to win a 5000 dollar bonus, is NOT sound negotiating tactics. At this point the teachers are praying the government legislates them back to work.

The goal of the government is to bust the union and if they succeed with the BCTF, they will move on to other targets. Additionally, this is personal for Clark, who will never take the chance that she will lose through a mediation or binding arbitration process.
Research shows that money invested in the young pays huge dividends later on with one study suggesting that for every dollar spent at the pre-school level saves the tax payer $17 by the time that child reaches their mid-teens. In the US, corporations working in urban areas impacted by poverty and neglect are investing their own money to run proper daycares with very high teacher to child ratios (often 1:1) in order to build human capacity for the future. It’s time the BC government dropped their vendetta and consider the people of this province, especially our children and their futures.

@ sunnyday 2,

or instead, how about this?…

Come on BCTF, get these kids back to school. If they even cared they would take the offer that the Government has mentioned. Let a third party in to help….guess BCTF doesn’t want that help. Selfish people they are.

Mediation and binding arbitration are completely different and NOT interchangeable. How do you lose when you participate in a mediated settlement? Comparing inner city Detroit or Chicago’s child care situation with the current stalemate over wages and benefits for teachers in BC, does your argument no help.

Sunny, the BCTF want control over class size. Thats their offer. The government wants control of class size and related issues. Thats their offer. The issue is of huge importance going forward. Giving the BCTF this power will change the control of education policy and the exponential increase in costs, out of government hands. Its that simple. Signing bonuses and massage costs are just noise.

Oh c’mon…the case is before the courts and the BCTF knows that the government won’t place anything on the table about that situation until they have exhausted their legal avenues. This was about hoping the government would lap up whatever Iker ladled out, in a hope that there would be labour peace.
Iker dropped the ball on that one when his faux leadership credentials met the real world of negotiations. The BCTF met their match in Christy and they know it. They should have wrung a decent settlement out of a fledgling liberal party BEFORE the last provincial election, instead of betting their wad on the (smirk) NDP to win. For that alone Iker should resign.

“Why put something that the teachers have absolutely no control over to a vote, might as well vote if the sun should continue to rise in the east. With a legislated end to the dispute the ace in the employers pocket why risk an unaffordable end that arbitration could cause.”

Sounds smart to me just in case the Government says okay lets do this binding arbitration thingy. The teachers will have already voted.

“The BCTF met their match in Christy and they know it.”

Christy broke the law! I guess time will only tell if ripping up the contract was a good idea or not. Right now it is looking like a bad idea.

Both sides are so out to lunch on this…Iker is out of his depth for sure, he knew they weren’t going to get more than the other unions and some of the benefit requests were out in fantasy land.

However, Clark and Fassbender have not been interested in negotiation since day 1. As the strike continues, this looks more like government is out to bust the union and privatize education for their toadies at the Fraser Institute.

Both sides are like children fighting in the sandbox over nickels, there should be a 3rd party looking at this because these 2 parties couldn’t agree on which direction the sun sets at night.

This dispute shows the worst side of the union movement and the worst side of the neo-liberal movement

This sense of failure that is embraced by the BCTF membership is just sad. Is there nobody within their ranks who can ascend to the leadership mantel and actually lead? I would be rather disheartened to toil away as a teacher knowing full well that the leadership of my union, is more interested in perpetuating the toxic relationship with the government, regardless of who it is, than moving forward.
Thirty years of failed negotiations and a membership that just falls further and further behind other public sector unions in pay and benefits. Now they want it all topped up, because the maroons at the helm of their union couldn’t get their ducks in a row, no-matter how many kicks at the can they get.

“Sounds smart to me just in case the Government says okay lets do this binding arbitration thingy. The teachers will have already voted.”

Are you saying that if the employer had agreed when Iker made the offer of binding arbitration he would have said “ummm I’ll get back to you after a vote”? If that is the case then it shows the demand for arbitration was nothing but a publicity stunt or playing up for the increasingly discontented tf members that he is actually doing something to try to get the paychecks coming in.

He has clearly ran out of ideas as with the tf’s normal bargaining tactics they would have been sent back to work with an imposed contract before the summer. When that didn’t happen he does not know what to do. He has become nothing more than a
paper tiger.

There has been movement on both sides winteriscoming, it is a lie Iker is trying to keep going to his advantage

Only difference is Iker wants the government to move by 100s of millions and they are only moving in the tens of millions

Jimmy Hughes said, “the case is before the courts and the BCTF knows that the government won’t place anything on the table about that situation until they have exhausted their legal avenues.”

The government has put something on the table about the court case. They have proposed that if the BCTF wins and the government’s appeal is denied that the goverment should have the option of cancelling the collective agreement. They say they want BCTF to have the same right, so either they want to have a rerun of the strike when the appeal is decided since it would mean that either side would be able to cancel the contract (how stupid is that), or they know the government is going to lose the appeal and need to cover their posteriors. To me, this is clear bad faith posturing.

He also said, “membership that just falls further and further behind other public sector unions in pay and benefits”.

At least Johnny understands one of the problems. However it was brought about by government ordering teachers back to work not by any fault of the union’s leadership abilities. Ordering back to work is a sure sign of a government’s failure as it is an acknowledgement that they could not win against the union. Look for that admission once again, eventually.

A good post ammonra.

However, I doubt that the right wing Liberal regular posters here will give it much thought.
As I sat with a group in having coffee the other day, one of them put it quite concisely.
He said that you will never change the minds of the right wing posters, who think strip mining and clear cutting are good for the province. He said they will always have some way to justify their skewed thinking and no matter what, they will never support education or teachers.

I relayed Bill Maher’s quote, “The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them.” Then we shared a good laugh.

Maher really accurately described the anti-teacher group on this site.

So, the failure of the BCTF to secure a deal other than what is imposed upon them after failed strike after failed strike is the fault of the government? No..it is the lunacy of the BCTF leadership devoid of any ideas, so they simply try the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result each and every time.
Oh..isn’t that quaint. The “right wing” boogie man frightens some of the tax and spend leeches. I’m sure while you were sitting around pontificating about the mindset of your boogieman, the rest of us were at work.

The thing Iker said about Dix made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of my chair.

How about including on the binding arbitration ballot all the other options? Teachers are smart enough to make the right choice if given a democratic opportunity.

Hmm… Interesting, Karmann. That’s easy to reverse. Let me try…

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“However, I doubt that the left wing Liberal regular posters here will give it much thought.
As I sat with a group in having coffee the other day, one of them put it quite concisely.
He said that you will never change the minds of the left wing posters, who think strip mining and clear cutting aren’t good for the province. He said they will always have some way to justify their skewed thinking and no matter what, they will always support education or teachers.

I relayed Bill Maher’s quote, “The problem is that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them.” Then we shared a good laugh.

Maher really accurately described the anti-government group on this site.”

—

That was easy.

karmann; “He said that you will never change the minds of the right wing posters, who think strip mining and clear cutting are good for the province. He said they will always have some way to justify their skewed thinking and no matter what, they will never support education or teachers.” You may find this difficult but a person can be for education & teachers but be opposed to the political entity that goes by the initials BCTF. Being against the BCTF does not translate into leaning to the right politically. For the record,I think both sides are acting like jackasses but historically the BCTF has almost never negotiated well with anyone. One would expect more of a group that extols the virtues of good education.