So does the general public know just what it is the teachers want ?? Obviously its money, --- its always more money, but what else are they asking for ?? Smaller class size, more schools, what?? How does a BC teacher's paycheck stack up against a teacher doing equal work in the rest of Canada? Same for class size, etc. Why are the teachers in BC constantly threatening "job action" to enforce their "demands" ?? What is the real truth here ?? ( Don't insult me by trying to tell me its all for the "betterment" of BC students !! ) None of us are that stupid anymore, but can someone tell me how BC compares to the rest of Canada with regards to teachers??

Here's a riddle for you krisb. What's the difference between the teachers breaking the law and Premiere Gordo breaking the law? Of course the answer is that the teachers do it while sober.

You don't know that Alberta and Ontario both went through the same process in the past? Where have you been? BC teachers wages are now lower than those provinces. It is now not so much about wages as it is about the right to collective bargaining and free speech. Bill 12 removed the right of teachers to discuss working conditions. A corrupt liberal govt (federal or provincial) will stop at nothing to dictate their agenda. Here's a little history course for you uneducated individuals.

" It is a just person who disobeys an unjust law." - Plato (427-347 BC)


"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact
amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these
will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both.
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they
oppress."
Frederick Douglass

"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who
willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the
conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the
highest respect for the law."
Martin Luther King, jr.

"When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders."
~Veterans Fast for Life

"If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you
to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." ~Henry
David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobediance, 1849

"Laws are only words written on paper, words that change on society's whim
and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and
policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would
have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are
applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool."
~John J. Miller, And Hope to Die

BC Liberals and the program of legislative bullying of BC Teachers.

Jan 2002

Bill 27
- strips collective agreement of all negotiated class size and composition
language from the collective agreement. All guarantees on classroom support
and resources also disappear. Some of the language struck had been in force
for 30 years

Bill 28
- makes it illegal for teachers and the employer to discuss working
conditions. B.C. teachers are the only group of unionized working people in
Canada to which this type of Law applies.

Bill 18
- makes education an essential service. Only jurisdiction in a G8 country to
have this legislation for teachers

Bill 19
- retroactive legislation that overrules the BC Supreme court ruling that
stated the stripping of the contract by Rice was done illegally

Bill 50/51
- dissolves the elected council of the BC College of teachers
- the appointed council rewrites many of the Bylaws and policies without
input from those being regulated
- teachers withhold fees, government caves in, pays fees for teachers and
teachers elect a majority to the college

Bill 12
- government unilaterally extends the stripped contract of 2002 to expire in
June 2006
- teachers to recieve no wage increase for 2004-2005 and 2005-2006
- class size, composition and support issues ignored

Thank you camrose. I tell this one on the picket line today and thank you supertech for explaining each Bill passed in the past few years. Well done.

Nice job flogging a dead horse krisb. I hope your place of employment dosen't decide to put the screws to its employees anytime soon. We'll see if your still a cold hearted statistician if they do.

Campbell didn't "submit himself" to the authorities. He was caught by a cop, taken to the station, photographed and charged. Then he chose to avoid taking responsibility by pleading "No contest" rather than "Guilty", because that way he avoided admitting what he had done. Then he got the Attorney General (or was it the Solicitor General, or both) and the rest of his followers to undo years of public education against drunk driving by having him stand up and say, "It was just a mistake, the poor man, so it doesn't matter."

Unless I'm missing it on the news, I haven't heard much from Carol James in this dispute. If this is, as supertech says, about unions, and union rights to disobey whatever laws they deem "unjust", then what does the leader of the union side of our government think of all this?

I couldn't imagine how any so called profesional, could strap on a chezzy picket sign and wave at the traffic like the clowns selling flowers on 20 ave. If I ever sink that low, someone shoot me. This is extortion plane and simple. The teachers have no right to do this. If I was in grade 12 and this effected my potential university admission, my teachers would never forget me.