U will get an emotion driven rant as they try to pull ur heart strings.

U clearly have a pro teacher agenda, I have a pro facts agenda. We facts people can, and will, make their own conclusions. That is democracy.

Seems to be a bunch of issues in SD43, where apparently that principal who wrote that email is in. They need to allocate their operational budget better and get their staffing and salary issues under control as indicated by KPMG after the audit.

SD43 budget presentation from this April http://www.sd43.bc.ca/budget/Documen...ionApril15.pdf, some key points that jumped out at me from this are:
1) 68 schools + unknown small number of alternative schools in SD43. Operating budget of $270 million. Overall declining enrollment
2) funding levels have kept pace with inflation
3) 91% of the operating budget is spent on salary and related benefits costs
4) Only 8.88% of the budget is spent on supplies and services
5) funding has not increased from last year and remains frozen
6) while funding has not increased, costs have.
7) Cost of program needs are $1,127,078 million, this includes supplies, classroom equipment, educational assistants for special needs students.
8) Costs of increase in teacher's salaries and benefits are $1,350,000
9) Costs of increase in CUPE wage increase, benefits are $991,000
10) Costs of employee future benefits plan increase are $700,000
11) Costs increase of utilities (hydo/Fortis) are $625,000

While I still side with the Provincial Government in this dispute, I do think they need to allocate more funding to keep pace with inflation and rising utilities costs. Funding to be spent on supplies, equipment and sports/music programs needs to increase as well. In this area, the Government is falling short on. However does it not strike anyone as ridiculous, especially in times of declining enrollments, over supply of teachers available and economic/budgetary constraints, that 91% of the budget is used on wages, benefits and salary increases, yes, along with administrators, teachers do get raises as they work their way through the grid despite that bs they keep yelling about no raises.

Now, I don't actually care about this other than the moral issue about education, but:

What has been the average real pay raise, per scale, been over the last 20 years. If negative,that's wrong, it should be zero. Purchasing power should be maintained, nothing more.

Teachers go up the scale and get pay raises that way. Why anyone thinks they deserve a real pay raise for doing no more work is beyond me.

Earn ur pay raises, don't just expect them bc ur 1 yr older (experience raises come with scale bumps)

I agree with you 100% but unfortunately That's just how unioned "government" workers work.

That is a really dumb idea.

Lets presume you work for Hoot Suite who is in Vancouver.

Hootsuite(HS) is in BC and not some other province because BC has the lowest Corp tax rate. HS employees 5000 people and new grads.

Premire Frenchie increases corporate taxes by mere 1%. HS makes Billions in profit. HS says, "hey why are we paying so much taxes in BC, lets move to another province so we don't pay extra taxes, which will leave us enough money for our own bonuses, improvements, developments etc.".

HS proceeds to relocate their business to said province, leaving 5000 people unemployed. Leaving the gastown economy in shambles as a result of trickle down effect on the local resturants, couriers, and other vendors. There is now also empty space in the building, who else is going to rent out the 2 buildings HS currently occupies.

Computer Science grads are now jobless making it for an even more competitive market place. Some choose to battle it out, some choose to move to another province, country to get work.

K-7 kids, are not impacted as they are too young still. 8-10kids are still in the party phase and care a little bit. 11-4th year students are up the creek because, they know they will have even more competition trying to get a job.

So by increasing corporate taxes by a mere 1% what have you accomplished?

- drive out big employers
- shut down local businesses that rely on big employers in the neighbourhood
- drive out new grads to other cities due to lack of jobs in BC
- force sr. year students to re-locate to other schools due to possibility of better job prospects.
- Keep this up and the young families will soon move to other places as well for better jobs, leading to a decrease in K-12 enrollment in BC.

As much as people hate corporations, they make our economies run. We should never slap the hand that feeds us.

For what it's worth, I like how you said lets tax corporations and not "i'm ok with paying $200 a year" ... your suggestion goes to show that you can't put money where your plans are..

^ Welcome to the BC film industry. The government declined to match tax incentives of other provinces and states, so much of the once vaunted film industry here has declined to less than a third of what it once was a few years ago.

This is so true.

Watch this, for your own sake and someone you care.
As a human being, it is NORMAL to feel nervous, have different personality, be shy, be arrogant, anything.

We are labeling kids as "______ disorder" and it's getting ridiculous.

I know it's more than an hour video, but well worth your time.

Taxing corporations is beyond stupid.

Every person they employ pays taxes; every item they purchase is taxed; every service they provide is taxed.

Just make sure they're actually hiring Canadians.

I have a basic question, how does strike work? :suspicious:

Let's say I work at Mcdonald's, I'm unhappy with my minimum wage. So I tell my boss that I'm on strike. I'm sure the boss will tell me to STFU and he/she will find a replacement.

Same goes with a lot of other work places. If you're not happy with your wage and refuse to work? You are probably gonna get fired.
It doesn't matter if it's a restaurant, flower shop, bakery, bicycle shop, fitness gym, landscaping job, Subway, etc.

Now I'm wondering if teachers push hard and long enough, do you think the BC Government will eventually tell them to STFU and start finding replacements?
Let's face it, there are so many people out there who want to get a teaching/administrative positions, I don't imagine BC Government having a hard time finding replacements. The positions will fill up relatively quickly.

I know this is union thing and it's not McDonald's, however they can't do this forever. Just because they extend the strike, doesn't mean BC government will eventually agree to give them what they want.

Iker stood up and stated that giving the BCTF *all* their demands would amount to a mere $3 extra per student per day. Wow, Jim, that doesn't sound like much at all, that's a pretty screamin' deal! Hell, BC taxpayers should have no problem footing that!

Until you calculate that there are about 559,000 students waiting to be enrolled in our public schools (that's the 2013/14 number). So that's an extra $1.677M. PER DAY. You care to do the math for how much that totals over an ~200 day school year, or shall I? Now care to extrapolate that over the life of the next contract (say 4-5 years)? How about over the life of EVERY student from here on out, since you KNOW once the next contract comes around, there's no way the TF is conceding anything they get this time around.

Oh, but it's ONLY $3 per student per day... ONLY.

:ilied:

Hold on, I get where you and others are going with this, but corporate tax is 100% necessary.

An incorporated company is a separate entity from it's stakeholders financially and legally speaking, this company has its own accounts, investments, etc. That's how corporations differ from partnerships, and a sole proprietorship.

Most companies don't leave too much money inside the actual corporation, as that eliminates the benefits offered by the corporate veil (spoilered these benefits for continuity), but the fact that money CAN remain inside the companies accounts for long periods of time is why corporate tax is so important. Without it many companies could just store billions of dollars inside the actual corporation for long periods without ever paying the necessary taxes on that money. This could slow an economy to a fucking crawl and cripple a government, be very aware of the fact that money moving from one place to another is what keeps our world economy moving, freeze a large amount of this money for even a few days, and you could potentially create a bigger panic then what happened in 2008-2009.

All of this goes really off topic, but my general point is that while raising corporate tax is pretty stupid. Having some form of implementation is completely necessary, the amount of corporate tax is governed by the level in other markets which influence ours, and compete with us.

Just because I didn't type the exact words, "I'm ok with paying $200 a year" in my post doesn't mean I wouldn't. I'm ready and willing to do it.

I also said that the government COULD raise corporate taxes. I used an example of 1%. Doesn't mean that they will. My point is that these extra costs that the government is saying that they'll need to fund should they give what the teachers want can come from a combination of a variety of places.

If BC has the lowest corporate tax rate in the country, they COULD raise taxes to within a percentage point of the 2nd lowest province (I don't know what the figures are but I hope you understand what I mean) and still retain many businesses and corporations. That being said, again, it's just an option.

OR they can take all the savings from teachers' salaries during the strike and give parents with kids $40 per day for "childcare", amounting to over $1M a day?

If they took that money and put it back into the education system, we wouldn't be arguing about where the money should be coming from. The teachers would be paying their own raises! But nope...we're talking about $200/year of increased taxes.

I feel for the grade 12 students applying for competitive undergrad programs at UBC/SFU and back East.

I recall feeling pretty pressured in the last year of high school..and that's with summer school meaning I had a lighter course load in the academic year.

These guys have to face a shortened timeframe, no summer school to alleviate the pressure and to top it off the ever-increasing academic averages last i check was what, low 90%'s average?

May be they'll default to college, which is probably easier and possibly better for the majority in the long run.

Funny article title but these 'overachievers' have a good point.
Angry Grade 12 student says young voters-to-be will remember ?who?s behind this? strike

some sort of deal may be in place (news1130 breaking news)

a deal's been made, but it'll take a couple days to sort out the language in the contract, and of course the teachers have to vote on it to accept the deal or not.

Great news, get these kids back in the classroom and let the Teachers do there job.

^ This Expert...

http://globalnews.ca/news/1564466/bc...nd-government/

i'm banking on this deal being more on the side of the government.

BCTF showed their true colours, and they were shit, teachers will probably lose out on whatever deal has been reached.

unions don't usually win. mind you, i'm sure the liberal/crust clark approval is down the drain too.

the true losers, the kiddies

what recourse do teachers have to have better representation next time? if bctf shit the bed are teachers SOL and stuck with them or can they seek better representation somehow?

For a couple weeks... not for the next 20 years.

lol yeah i'm pretty sure it was
I remember watching the news this morning and seeing Peter Cameron and his crew pounding back beers and wine at the conference room. He sounded pretty happy on his initial interview too.

I think at this rate, teachers will ratify whatever deal is placed in front of them. Not having a paycheque the last little while and lost out on summer school pay :heckno:

My Aunt is very involved with Union's in Sask. and from what she told me it's very difficult to achieve desertification. You would need a huge majority of the Teachers voting together I doubt you would be able to achieve that because many are quite content with the BCTF as there representation.

Anything is possible but it's highly unlikely. Now that a settlement has been reached (tentatively) and once the teachers are back at work the Union representation and these negotiations will be in the past and thinking about representation for the next contract is the last thing on their minds.

In short, not going to happen.

Watch the teacher's reject it and start crying about how they are still hard done by and they are still doing it for the kids...