BCTF to Celebrate Milestone
Prince George, B.C. – Unionized teachers across B.C. are getting set to mark the BC Teachers’ Federation’s 100th anniversary.
The BCTF will celebrate the occasion by live streaming the two-hour event (accessible by clicking here) at their head office in Vancouver starting at 3:30 p.m. this afternoon.
“There’s not too many organizations in western Canada that can claim to have a 100th anniversary,” says president Glen Hansman. “Just a handful – the University of British Columbia, the BCSTA are two of the other education related organizations that passed that milestone.”
He says the celebration will take place exactly 100 years after the BCTF had their very first meeting on Jan. 4, 1917.
“And so, we’re going to be having a cross-section of our living past presidents. People who led the organization all the way back to the 1960s will be here.”
Hansman says it will also be a chance to look back and take stock of all the union’s accomplishments.
“It’s been 100 years of advocacy for teachers, it’s been 100 years of advocacy for public education and for supports for students,” he says.
“Certainly, some ups and downs throughout that period of time and we continue to face challenges as well as successes, but it’s important to celebrate benchmarks like this and to look forward.”
Hansman says one thing teachers can look forward to in the short-term is more support in the classroom following the BCTF’s big win in the Supreme Court of Canada last year over class size and composition.
“Both the provincial government and the BCTF have been meeting in earnest. We had another meeting yesterday to figure out the next steps so we’re hopeful we can get some jobs posted in our schools this school year and then work out the details as to how we’re going to handle the next school year.”
He expects those details will be sorted out “in the next few weeks.”
Those unable to watch the celebration at 3:30 can watch later as it will be archived on the BCTF’s website.
Comments
I’d love to watch it live but I’ll be working at 3:30 in the afternoon.
We must live in a pretty uneventful boring world if one has to go to Google News to see whats going on for our local News stays stagnant with no new stories daily
Congratulations to our teachers on your 100th milestone and on your Supreme Court of Canada victory.
Too bad there had to be a winner and a loser on the latter, but who here was surprised about the outcome? … oh yeah, there were a few wasn’t there? Teachers win with better working conditions, and our kids win with better learning conditions, when it comes to better class size and composition.
Go figure!
Celebrate the excellent work of most teachers, who do a great job in education, but do not celebrate the BCTF, who protects the mediocre teachers and has no interest in their education. Many of the BCTF top level who were teachers would not do anything for the children if it did not follow the contract exactly. This includes tutoring, coaching or any extracurricular activities.
winteriscoming, it’s not only the BCTF that protects the mediocre, I would say most unions do. If you have say 20 workers all making the same wage under the same contract where is incentive to perform? Everyone will perform to the slowest workers pace, it’s human nature. Years ago I knew a person who was working with a union at a major refinery during a shutdown, the big game at the time was to see how long you could walk around the refinery carrying a 2×4 over your shoulder before being asked what you were doing, they called it “hide and seek for a grand a week”.
I agree Peter North. It would be nice to see Unions step up their game and revise their “protectionism” ideology.
I really hope they learn how to negotiate in the next hundred years, instead of allowing their blown up egos to get in the way.
“They”? If you are referring to the BCTF then they already have proven that they can negotiate very effectively. Otherwise, why would all the management cheerleaders on here complain so much about what teachers get? The same applies to most other unions, I would expect. If the unions were incompetent negotiators the rightist anti-union mob would be ecstatic, wouldn’t they?
LOL!
Actually what probably bothers me the most were two things.
Having been a union member for a long time, and being well aware of what goes on during negotiations, it was the confrontational attitude of the BCTF leadership, as well as the fact they were unable to pay their members strike pay. That tells me they were totally dysfunctional and needed an overhaul in the BCTF Management. 90% of teachers do a wonderful job and don’t need a union.
Negotiate? More like “if you don’t give in to our demands we will strike” and the kids can sit at home, knowing working parents will put pressure on the government to give in to the teachers demands.
Reasons we should be thanking unions; Weekends without work; All breaks at work, including your lunch breaks; Paid vacation; Family & Medical Leave; Sick leave; Social Security; Minimum wage; Civil Rights – prohibits employer discrimination; 8-hour work day; Overtime pay; Child labor laws; Occupational Safety & Health Standards; 40-hour work week; Unemployment insurance; Pensions; Workplace safety standards and regulations; Employer health care insurance; Collective bargaining rights for employees; Wrongful termination laws; Age Discrimination prohibition; Whistleblower protection laws; Compensation increases and evaluations (i.e. raises); Sexual harassment laws; Holiday / Vacation pay; Employer dental, life, and vision insurance; Privacy rights; Pregnancy and parental leave; The right to strike; Public education for children; Equal Pay; Laws ending slave labour and sweatshops in Canada.
You got that right. We are al different and not all of us are suck holes.
Cheers
If you ask me the unions have brainwashed the workers to believe they are not competent enough to keep a job on their own or negotiate a fair salary on their own. The unions will tell a worker that they can join their group of people for a nominal monthly fee for which the worker will receive protection from the evil employer. Sounds like a Al Pacino movie.
Without Unions its a race to the bottom. A while ago, a young comedian named Chris Rock summed it up in this sort 30 second video. Business exists to maximize their profits and minimize their costs… guess what? We (labour) are part of their costs!
ht tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtjTRTKHDjg
While there may be the occasional exception, Unions tend to be reactive. It is management that is proactive. Management decides to do something stupid because, after all, they are in charge and end up breaking one of the rules they voluntarily agreed to. Surprise, surprise, the union complains and carries out their legal obligation to represent their members. The union wins, so of course, the union is at fault. Not the management, of course, after all, they’re in charge and can do no wrong and its the unions fault that management broke the agreed to rules.
Contract negotiations far too often seem to start with the Union tabling a ridiculous, outrageous and unaffordable set of demands. The negotiation process usually is successful in carving the demands to something within the realm of reality!
At the end of negotiations, the Union claims a victory, telling the workers for example that although they deserved 6%, management wanted to give 0%. The Union eventually negotiates 3% and then plays the hero by stating something along the lines of “brothers and sisters, you deserved 6% but the dastardly company/management screwed you over again! But we fought for you and we managed to get you 3%! Aren’t we wonderful, blah, blah, blah!”
That’s usually how things go, except in the case of the BCTF when the Glen Clark Government rolled over and kissed the Union’s butt by giving them everything and more than they wanted!
Before you tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about, long ago in another lifetime, I belonged to a union. I saw how things worked and I got the heck outta there!
I suspect that some of you belong to a Union and have a Union job because absolutely nobody in their right mind would hire some of you!
You know who you are!
Ammonra, my comment was in response to your ridiculous suggesting that somehow management is to blame by acting in a proactive and also that they end up breaking rules.
It always takes two to tango! Would you not agree that there have been times that Unions have tabled absurd contract demands, that there have been times that the Union has acted irresponsibly and without concern for anything but lining their own pockets?
Union members seem to have a hate-on for “business” but they fail to recognize that their very own Union has become nothing more than a business itself, with revenue in, expenses out and high executive salaries!
And speaking of Unions acting irresponsibly and without concern for anything, wasn’t it Irene Lanzinger, while still the head of the BCTF, who during contract negotiations and with regards to their unreasonable and high demands said something along the lines of:
“If taxes have to go up in order to pay for what we want, so be it!”
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