Oh look, the “Me-too” gang supports the BCTF in their battle to extort an unreasonable wage demand.

jimmy you don’t even have a clue what the teachers are going through right now. Have some empathy…

Editor’s note:
This comment has been edited to remove foul language

Classroom composition you mean. Not wages.

Why should anyone feel bad for these teachers?
It was there choice to go on strike and demand unreasonable wage increases!
What about the support staff that are forced to support them and walk the picket lines?
Would the teachers do the same for them?
Remember when you drive past the board office many if not most of the people there are support staff, not teachers.
Many teachers are out working other jobs like they do every summer to pad their incomes.

And CUPE is not on strike nor do they have to picket….

I really don’t know where most posters get their info but it is really starting to annoy me reading opinions on this site anymore.

Lildigger. I am support staff. I am not forced to support the teachers. I choose to support the teachers as I have seen in the past 20 years how much funding has been stripped from the classroom and the lack of support children, of all needs, receive.

Yes. The teachers would support and have supported us on our picket lines in the past.

Support staff will be wearing CUPE boards to identify their union. Is this how you made your observation??

Many people work two jobs to supplement their income, but again, not too sure what “many teachers” means to you.

@8 The support from the other lemming unions is for binding arbitration, which ONLY includes wage demands, NOT class size. Try and keep up. See? It NEVER was about class size and composition, but rather that fat pay raise and more juicy benefits. Never doubted it for a minute.

No, wages too. If you are behind here is something to read to catch up

http://www.bcpsea.bc.ca/bc-teachers/teacher-collective-bargaining.aspx

How much is 40,000 x 5,000? Right, I shouldn’t give you such complex numbers to figure out.

Thank you little bird

Jimmy Huges: Like littlebird said, you get the proper information and get back to us. Not worth commenting.

I can’t believe how rude and insulting comments are on here. Isn’t the whole point of the new system to moderate better?

I am a support staff. I am not picketting. I am a single parent who cannot leave my kids at home by themselves. Most of the members in my union make a 1/4 wage of what teachers make. There is a hardship fund for my union as well and I am seriously considering looking into it.

Class size and comp is a real thing. I have seen first hand how a high academic student in elementary school, who thank goodness can read on their own, works mostly independently through out the whole year while another kind of child comes to school. Parents are in denial that their child has severe behavior issues. Meanwhile the teacher and support staff babysit the child through a violent year of hitting, kicking, pinching, and spitting on other children and adults. And this is the 5th kid in the class like this.

You can’t really call it down if you haven’t been there now, can you?

Please inform us to what the wording was on the PR-stunt ballots regarding class size and composition.

Our teachers are the poorest paid in the country. Why is it that some people want to mean-mouth those who work for a wage? It seems that they want our society to become poorer and poorer, yet these same people show a nod of approval when corporations that make billions in profits in our country, get tax breaks and tax-paid grants to exploit our resources? I don’t understand this kind of thinking or I should say, lack of thinking.

This government wants to privatize all social programs. Twenty years ago the
government got rid of all mental health institutions that housed patients. The government said that sick or disabled people would have a better life in group homes. As you can see on the streets, that program has failed miserably. The government wants to get rid of public health service. Take a look at the models for private health care and see what those being paid minimum wage (like some want our teachers to earn) get for medical treatment. The government wants to get rid of public schools or downsize them so only the very very poor will go there to learn from poorly educated, poorly paid teachers.

The ballot was carried out in the open with other teachers looking over their shoulders and media recording what was checked off. Is this how ballots are taken in the BCTF for real or was this just political grandstanding for the media? Was there a mechanism t prevent one teacher from voting multiple times? Honour system? Just looked real odd on the news is all.

Posted on Thursday, September 11, 2014 @ 8:55 AM by slinky

The ballot was carried out in the open with other teachers looking over their shoulders

just for a cheap laugh, that’s what this government will need to do to win the next election.

Jimmy! Go read the court rulings then see if you can flap your gums.

Ok I get it.
To form an opinion one must first believe whatever mullet head kier has to say and then go from there?
Makes perfect sense.
Why bother getting lots of information that may conflict and then form ones own opinion.
Just believe jim!
Friggin sheep these union members are.

@NoWay: I am commenting on a news website. Hardly “…flapping my gums”. I think you are supposed to place the ladle back in the bowl, once you have a filled your glass.

You bet lildigger. Let the government dictate. Go ask the Ministry of Forest employees how that all worked out for them. I bet they would say the big corporations run it now. Great stewards of our province.

So basically, governments are bad? Unless of course they are NDP and then they are there to cave to every demand of public sector unions?

Hard to feel sorry for a group of well paid people who have chosen not to go to their well paying jobs.

sure jimmy sure

Posted on Thursday, September 11, 2014 @ 7:29 AM by Jimmy Hughes

Oh look, the “Me-too” gang supports the BCTF in their battle to extort an unreasonable wage demand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It has come out in media recently that there are no me-too clauses relevant. The me-too clauses can only be used within the same sector. Cupe and the other education sector unions do not have me-too clauses. Just one more fine example of government spin, or in this case a flat out lie.

I don’t work for a union, and quite frankly, I would hate to work for a union. Not my cup of tea.

Still, I feel for the teachers. If the NDP have a reputation of giving into union demands, then the Liberals have the reputation of not having a clue of how to deal with unions. This party should be embarrassed at their approach. The Supreme Court of Canada seems to agree as well.

A little respect would go a long way.

The Supreme Court of Canada has made NO such ruling. Nice spin. It is before the appellate court now. they haven’t even begun to apply to the Supreme Court. That is how dumb this entire argument is. The Liberals will either agree to the conditions of e80 or they won’t touch class size and composition in this negotiation. Simple. The BCTF wants nothing to do with E80, so class size and composition are NOT on the table.
Eventually, after the media tires of Iker’s toothless PR-stunts, and the weather turns miserable, teachers will be begging to be legislated back to work. We all know that. This is just a time for whiney dippers to exercise some frustration over spending the budget ten times over, and then losing the election.
It never ends all the veiled and unveiled threats of anarchy, general strikes, blah..blah..blah, and then like the “occupy” lunacy it all just dies on the vine, because, well, direct action means doing something to effect change. Standing around chanting slogans just doesn’t cut it.

pgjohn: “Still, I feel for the teachers. If the NDP have a reputation of giving into union demands, then the Liberals have the reputation of not having a clue of how to deal with unions.”

Then how did they manage to sign deals with the other 100,000+ public sector workers? The BCTF has a long history of not being able to get along with any government, Liberal, NDP, or whatever.

And don’t kid yourself, as opposed to what Smooth says, the other public sector unions are watching this very closely. They will not like being undercut by a rich teacher deal, and they will take that into their next negotiation.

To add some prospective! $8,000,000.00 is

-just under $200.00 per teacher
-4-5 hours of pay for an average teacher
– the value of 6 teachers pensions RRSP equivalent at 4%

Why don’t teachers try and access their pension funds to pay themselves. Taxpayers will be held responsible for any deficits anyway!

The government has been trying to play the citizens against the teachers in order to win. I know the truth is somewhere in the middle but in order to get there the government has to change its game plan. Saying your wrong and waiting doesn’t cut it when sides disagree. This handling sounds like it is from the harper 101 manual ;).

Just checked StatsCan and see that B.C. teachers with 10 years tenure are mostly in the top 10-15% of earners in Canada and a single teacher earns more than the median household income in Canada. Why would anybody in their right mind give GCs to millionaires and not to the less fortunate.

Coughs.. What about teachers with 9 yrs or less? How many ppl these days keep the same job for 10 years anymore..a rare few.. Your numbers are liberal fluff.

can’t wait until the day comes when you will have to pay about eight hundred dollars a month for private school and with this government just wait the medical system is next . If you think for one minute that its going to be a free ride think again . I back the teachers 100 % however that being said I would never trust a Liberal .

I would rather have an elected government dictate to the population than a union headed by a guy like kier whom is only voted in by a few shill union reps.
Teachers don’t care abut the rest of the province. Just their own fat raise and feeding from the trough.

Cougs. You really think the government would allow them access to their pensions..lol. Not a chance. The liberals want to bleed them dry and bully them into submission.. The government wants to destroy our education system not help it out..

Thanks for the laugh

You hit the nail on the head. Working in the public service is not as easy as it sounds. Good pay starts after 5-10 years and a pension comes after 30+ years of service. There is so much BS in that 30 years from government,bad management,union, bad employees etc that a decent pension after 30+ years if you last that long is well deserved. There are lots of private sector jobs that are the same. This isn’t elected office where you put in 8 years and get an amazing pension and benefits. Now Im broadly talking public employees and not specifically teachers. But you get the picture the argument is not as simple as the majority dumb it down to. I have worked all three public private and self. There are no clear winners in my experience. They all have long list of pros and cons for all the variations.

Don’t let facts get in the way P Val. So you don’t think it is fair to work your way up the pay scale. We should start a new teacher at $70-80,000. As far as the pension goes, I think the taxpayer as the employer should match the employee up to a certain amount then hand the pension over to the Union. At that point the taxpayer is off the hook for any more contributions. Done and Done! The union wouldn’t agree though as they would then be responsible for their own future retirement planning! But in fairness, the government would probably oppose it for any number of reasons as well.

Here’s something humourous! I read this morning that the BCTF will be “managing” the money that is being put forth by the BCFED, BCNU,etc.

With the BCTF’s track record of financial management, these new funds should last about 2 minutes!!

Ok, ok, I know that I’m being generous by suggesting 2 minutes, but hey, I’m trying to give Iker some credit. Maybe he’ll use some of these hardship funds for a haircut!!

News flash!

“Peter Fassbender has repeatedly rejected asking the legislature to force a solution, but he now says the reality is that government has the ultimate ability to legislate in any situation.”

This will get the redundant unions fuming!
Or the teachers being told what to do!
Get back to work!

redundant are most posters. Cut and paste from the first story.

The next TF vote will go something like this… Are you in favour of participating in another illegal strike once we are legislated back to work?

http://www.bcliberals.com/digital-influencers/

Disgusting.

WTF “And right from the beginning of the dispute she says Integris Credit Union stepped up to the plate offering lines of credit and offers of loan forgiveness.”

There’s nothing wrong with the line of credit but loan forgiveness??? They choose to strike. They voted to strike. What about the people that lose their jobs, are injured or have some sort of family crisis. Their not offered loans of forgiveness. I WILL BE MOVING MY ACCOUNTS.

Hey P Val, still fighting the last election, I see.

Wow, 8 million in interest free “loans” from the other unions. If I were the other unions I would rethink that offer. The BCTF is one of the oldest unions and they managed to mismanage the funds they held for the membership. I wouldn’t be loaning them a pen let alone money that’s going to be mismanaged again. However it is a “loan” from a “union” and well history dictates that the “unions” always get there money back (one way or another)…..lol

This will be interesting to watch now…..

“The Supreme Court of Canada has made NO such ruling. Nice spin.”

Wrong again Jimmy the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in regards to the Health Care workers rights in BC and that is what the judge in BC based their ruling on. Precedence has been set!

Here go ahead and read it!
Supreme Court

pgjohn,
“Still, I feel for the teachers. If the NDP have a reputation of giving into union demands, then the Liberals have the reputation of not having a clue of how to deal with unions. This party should be embarrassed at their approach. The Supreme Court of Canada seems to agree as well.

A little respect would go a long way.”

A nice post pgjohn.

So here’s a question for all of you closet lawyers out there; if the government chooses to legislate the teachers back to work, do they have to do so at the 2002 levels in order to avoid being guilty of contempt of court vis a vis Justice Griffin’s ruling?

Just read what the Federal workers are asking for in their new contract negotiations through their Union, PSAC!

And I thought that the BCTF was out to lunch! They set the bar pretty darn high, but good old PSAC kicked the bar clear into orbit!

Public Sector Unions really do need to be brought back to earth! This is getting freaking ridiculous! Enough is enough!

Looks like we’re trying to replicate what happened in Greece.

Where do public servants come up with stuff like this? 10 freaking days off with pay when an imaginary fried dies. Hope Iker does not catch wind of this.

“The Educational and Library Science Group of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) have demanded ‘aboriginal spirit friend’ be added to the list of ill or deceased family members that would trigger getting paid days-off for government employees.

While the term “aboriginal spirit friend” appears to be a creation of PSAC, “spirit friends” are commonly considered to be religious spirits or ghosts and can take a human or animal form.

Other union demands: adding January 2nd, February 16th, May 1st to existing 10 paid statutory holidays
Four weeks paid vacation for new hires – up from three, five weeks paid vacation after eight years on the job
Destruction of negative employee performance reviews after one year”

The average teacher makes 71,000 a year for 37 weeks pay.

If this was about class size teachers would offer reduced class size and no raise or pay cuts to reflect lower work requirements.

With gold plated pensions worth millions at the end of 25 years, I think it is time some of those BMWs, and Lexus’s get parked in the staff parking lot and get back to work.

For those of you who like math. If I were a teacher who retired after 25 years I would be making around 80,000 (or much more if I had a masters) I could then retire at 80% of that pay (64,000) inflation adjusted until I passed away. That could be easily 30 years. In order to get 64,000 a year you need to have 2 million in the bank at 3.2 percent interest (higher than my mortgage).

Lets call a spade a spade. With as many teachers wanting jobs as teachers with jobs, this strike is just a continuation of 20 years of BCTF obstinacy.

cupricity… so you are saying there are 40,000 unemployed ( not on strike) teachers in BC… lol.. so much for trust in your numbers.

BTW.. BMW are nice but no service in town.. Kelowna, Vancouver or Edmonton for warranty work.

Just saw Jim Iker on the Global News, stating earlier that “this Government is alone in it’s stance.”

Really Jim? There are a lot of us, A LOT of us who support our Government in it’s stance!!

Well according to a poll done on Wednesday by global tv it’s fairly even with about 39 for the teachers. 36 for the gov and the rest unsure.. Of course polls are just a very basic marker but the 25 unsure could be the smart ones..lol