School districts across B.C. planning deep cuts to balance budgets

[Great68]

Originally Posted by supafamous

I'm a lifelong Liberal voter and have spent my whole life being more anti-union than pro-union but the way Christy Clark goes about governing is disgusting. (I happen to like Gordon Campbell - he wasn't perfect but he was a decent man trying to make BC better).

As much as I hated Gordon Campbell, I'll respect that he stood up for what he believed would make BC better (whether I agreed with him or not) regardless of how it would affect his popularity.

Christy Clark seems like she'll just flip flop on anything that will make her popularity take a hit, or do anything she can to gain popularity regardless of the benefit to BC. ie: the whole HST debacle.

[Xplicit_EL]

Originally Posted by adambomb

Her party was voted in. Did you not remember the election that the NDP gave away? Did the teachers forget to show up and vote for their party that day?


Here we are today, Liberals in power.

I was referring to how someone with no experience and no credentials was ever allowed to get the top spot in our province. I am pretty sure most teachers voted NDP from what I hear. It was the rest of the population that gave there vote to an incompetent leader.

[6o4__boi]

lmao...chrusty crap is getting her ass handed to her in this press con

fassbender looks like that dumbass employee that no one takes seriously and has to have his supervisor convince his bosses that he's doing a good job

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by Xplicit_EL

I was referring to how someone with no experience and no credentials was ever allowed to get the top spot in our province. I am pretty sure most teachers voted NDP from what I hear. It was the rest of the population that gave there vote to an incompetent leader.

"The rest of the population"

Yea..like -All- private business.. Remember last NDP rule?

[6o4__boi]

http://www.elections.bc.ca/docs/rpt/...ion-Report.pdf


there was a 55% voter turnout last election which is a pretty shitty turnout.
if there ever was anyone to blame for any stupid policy or any liberal quirk you don't like...it's the other 45% that didn't show up


which kinda grinds my gears...if you didn't vote and now you're complaining about how things are, shut the fuck up, you're partly to blame. It's not that hard to vote, takes little time and they present you with multiple opportunities. The only real reason most people couldn't vote was because they were too goddamn lazy.

[MG1]

Christy did not get voted in. She lost her riding. Someone had to give up their seat. Once someone is sworn in they can do whatever they want and collect that great pension. It doesn't matter who is in power, politicians are all the same. To get to that level you have to kiss a lot of ass. You cannot become successful unless you make deals to get the votes and the money to fund the campaigns. There aren't enough Chuck Cadmans in this world.

Do you vote for the party or the candidate in your riding?

I didn't think Christy was that bad. It's like getting married and then finding out a year or two later you've made the wrong decision.

[stewie]

Originally Posted by Xplicit_EL

I was referring to how someone with no experience and no credentials was ever allowed to get the top spot in our province. I am pretty sure most teachers voted NDP from what I hear. It was the rest of the population that gave there vote to an incompetent leader.

foreman showed me this today.

http://www.change.org/p/the-concerne...-christy-clark

i could only wish she would resign...a monkey waving a banana can do a better job than she can.

[supafamous]

A pretty balanced summary of what's at stake for both sides.

Vaughn Palmer: Entrenched positions promise to prolong teachers? strike

VICTORIA — For Day 2 of the school year, Premier Christy Clark and teachers’ union president Jim Iker provided a lesson in why contract negotiations are rarely helped and often hurt by attempts to bargain in public.

Clark started it off with a midday media conference, her response to multiple calls of the “Where’s the premier?” variety after the weekend collapse of talks between the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the government negotiator.

She began by repeating earlier government calls for teachers “to suspend their strike while we get kids back into the classroom while we bargain.”

A welcome theme for the public and perhaps for some teachers as well, given the lack of strike pay in a dispute that has already gone on longer than expected.

Then the message to the union on the government’s preferred order of negotiation on the remaining outstanding issues:

“We want to be talking about classroom composition at the table. That is the single most important issue for me as premier,” said Clark. “The only way we can start doing that is if the teachers’ union can get into a reasonable zone, a reasonable settlement so we can put these wage issues aside.”

Reasonable in her definition being a settlement in the same range as those already accepted by some 150,000 other workers in the provincial public sector.

“They (union negotiators) need to come to the table with a proposal that looks a lot more like the raises that everybody else got, it includes a fairer raise.” Clark continued. “Once we’ve done that then we can talk about the single most important issue to me, and that’s making sure we address issues of class composition, but that’s the order in which these things need to happen.”

So the two sides should settle wages and benefits first, then the Liberals are prepared to discuss more money to address the broad range of issues regarding class size, composition and more resources for students with special needs.

She also underscored the importance of avoiding provocations at this late stage in the negotiations: “It’s most important for the leadership at the teachers’ union and in government to set aside the emotion that’s involved and set aside getting tripped up on things that are outside of the core issues.”

But she promptly disregarded her own advice by taking some partisan shots at teachers, as when she accused them of seeking a provision in their contract for “unlimited massages.”

Iker corrected the record in a follow up press conference, noting that the proposal was limited to $3,000 worth of massages a year and then only for teachers with sufficient medical need as determined by a physician. He further maintained that the union had signalled a willingness to withdraw that provision on the weekend.

In a similar vein, the government challenged Iker’s claim that teachers are locked out, maintaining that the lockout has been lifted. The union fired back that it has not received official notification of the lifting, which was also the government comeback on the union’s reputed change of position on massages.

Such exchanges provide a depressing reminder to parents, students and the public alike of the degree to which the two sides remain publicly consumed by their own entrenched positions and the minutiae of the dispute.

Iker acknowledged concerns about bargaining publicly toward the end of his news conference. “Maybe we are in the media too much. Maybe we should be bargaining rather than being out here.”

But there he was and so was Clark. Which is not to say that this dispute could be settled even if the two sides could suppress the bitterness, get back to the table, and focus on fundamentals.

Indeed, Iker identified what has emerged as “the biggest obstacle to settlement” — namely, the respective positions on the long-running legal battle over contract provisions that give the union a substantial say over class size and composition.

The government has twice legislated those out of existence, believing they give the union too much power over the management of the education system. The union has twice persuaded a B.C. Supreme Court judge to put them back on grounds that the government violated teachers’ right to a fair process of collective bargaining.

But in restoring the provisions, the court acknowledged that they were not “clad in stone” and could be subject to future collective bargaining.

Seizing on that passage, the Liberals have been trying to negate the disputed provisions in the current round of bargaining, not wanting to be saddled with the costs and restrictions through the next contract. Not surprisingly, the union takes the position that it is not prepared to surrender at the bargaining table what it twice won in court.

Adding to the complications, the Liberals have taken the case to the Court of Appeal, raising the possibility that the negotiations could produce one outcome on the disputed contract language, the courts another.

“We’ll stand pat in negotiations and take our chances in court,” says the union.

“We can’t afford the risk,” say the Liberals.

It is not easy to conceive of a middle ground between those two irreconcilables.

Yet another reason why this dispute is likely to fester onward until a public outcry necessitates another legislated settlement, probably later this month, maybe in early October.

[4444]

Originally Posted by 6o4__boi

http://www.elections.bc.ca/docs/rpt/...ion-Report.pdf


there was a 55% voter turnout last election which is a pretty shitty turnout.
if there ever was anyone to blame for any stupid policy or any liberal quirk you don't like...it's the other 45% that didn't show up


which kinda grinds my gears...if you didn't vote and now you're complaining about how things are, shut the fuck up, you're partly to blame. It's not that hard to vote, takes little time and they present you with multiple opportunities. The only real reason most people couldn't vote was because they were too goddamn lazy.

To counter that point, what if those 45% were just about the same make up as the 55%? Statistically it could make sense, in which case 100% vote results would match that of the representative sample... Is the 55% a representative sample?

I personally didn't vote last time, as I had no one that I wanted to vote for.

If they had a "non of the above" box which would require all party leaders to resign and start over with new ones, if it got majority vote, then I'd have voted for that.

Liberal or ndp... Not exactly a good option

[6o4__boi]

That's a pretty big what if, and we're never really gonna find out the answer to that one are we? So no point dwelling on that and building an argument over something hypothetical.

particularly because last election the so-called polling experts had the NDP to win by a wide margin only to find out that NDP voters are willing to answer polling questions but they're just too fucking lazy to actually take those answers to the ballot box

what do you mean you had no one to vote for? You do realize there are options outside of the traditional NDP and Liberal right? I'm not gonna get into how voting for other parties can affect election dynamics. But saying there's no one to vote for and wishing there was another system in place, that's just wishful thinking. Maybe in a place where rainbows and butterflies are the norm and where the cookie monster isn't addicted to cookies like a heroin addict is to heroin we'd have an option like that.

But we don't, we have this system in place. It's not perfect, quite far from it but it is what it is. If the liberals learned anything last season it's that they only have to target those who are most likely to vote.

As a democracy (and a pretty pathetic one) it's bothersome to see voter turnout so low. Sure there are actually legitimate people who didn't vote because they had no one to vote for but we have too many "fuck it, elections decided, not like my votes gonna count" people who later go on ranting and raving about shitty policies. I know because I work with a bunch of said assholes.

[4444]

Originally Posted by 6o4__boi

That's a pretty big what if, and we're never really gonna find out the answer to that one are we? So no point dwelling on that and building an argument over something hypothetical.

particularly because last election the so-called polling experts had the NDP to win by a wide margin only to find out that NDP voters are willing to answer polling questions but they're just too fucking lazy to actually take those answers to the ballot box

what do you mean you had no one to vote for? You do realize there are options outside of the traditional NDP and Liberal right? I'm not gonna get into how voting for other parties can affect election dynamics. But saying there's no one to vote for and wishing there was another system in place, that's just wishful thinking. Maybe in a place where rainbows and butterflies are the norm and where the cookie monster isn't addicted to cookies like a heroin addict is to heroin we'd have an option like that.

But we don't, we have this system in place. It's not perfect, quite far from it but it is what it is. If the liberals learned anything last season it's that they only have to target those who are most likely to vote.

As a democracy (and a pretty pathetic one) it's bothersome to see voter turnout so low. Sure there are actually legitimate people who didn't vote because they had no one to vote for but we have too many "fuck it, elections decided, not like my votes gonna count" people who later go on ranting and raving about shitty policies. I know because I work with a bunch of said assholes.

with all due respect, you started this hypothetical, in the hypothetical that the voting public weren't representative of the population on the whole.

i take your point wrt other parties... but really, who am i voting for, some independent (still have crusty as the provincial leader) or the conservative candidate (that party is a joke, it is the way i'd vote, but again, no one votes for bc conservatives, they don't even have enough ppl).

bc politics has become a joke

[6o4__boi]

lol either way arguing on a hypothetical basis is pointless in this context.

I never said it wasn't representative, though one could imply from the fact that I pointed out that there was a shitty turnout.

I would say that it is more likely that the 55% is not representative of the voting public than the 45% having the same make up. But again that's all hypothetical and we'll never really find out. I'm just playing the odds based on what I know.

yup, bc politics and the overall Canadian politics is pretty much a joke. But there's not much we can do about it other than chip away and hope for the best.

[4444]

Well there is something we can do, we can organize and protest, truly let them know how we feel. Have a peaceful revolution.

But this won't happen as ppl are too wrapped up in their own sad little lives to realize that if we help everyone, we all individually benefit

[7seven]

I voted for the BC Liberals last election and have since I started voting. Not the biggest fan of Christy Clark, was actually hoping that Kevin Falcon would have won the BC Liberal leadership race, but I voted for the party platform rather than Clark. I know a number of people personally who planned to vote BC Liberals that didn't vote last Provincial election because for months leading up to the election, the polling made it seemed like the NDP would win in a massive landslide so they felt like it wouldn't matter, such a stupid way of thinking.


I wonder how many teachers actually agree with the BCTF's demands and how they are being represented.

Smyth: If it’s really about the kids, why are teachers making excessive demands?


BY MICHAEL SMYTH, THE PROVINCE SEPTEMBER 4, 2014 11:17 AM


It’s true the B.C. Teachers’ Federation beat the Liberal government like a pinata in court for illegally stripping their contract 12 years ago.

That’s why the union is bound and determined to extract such a lucrative new contract from the government this time around. To the victor go the spoils, after all.

But there’s just one thing: The court’s ruling does NOT require the government to enshrine the eliminated NDP-era class-size and composition limits in a new deal.

The judge herself said the old limits are not “clad in stone” and should be the subject of future collective bargaining.

Yes, the judge ruled the old limits were “restored retroactively” but that ruling was stayed by another judge as the government appeals to a higher court.

The stay was opposed by the union, which wanted the new limits restored immediately. The government argued successfully that would have caused chaos and cost a fortune to immediately shrink classes and rehire teachers, librarians and other specialists.

(That’s right — despite their spectacular legal triumphs, the union lost the most recent critical skirmish in court.)

With the ruling in limbo until the matter is heard by the B.C. Court of Appeal — and likely by the Supreme Court of Canada after that — the two sides are left to negotiate a new contract in the meantime.

And that’s why the schools are shut down.

The union understandably feels it deserves massive new gains because of its court victory. The government understandably disagrees, knowing the court ruling carries no legal obligation to roll over to the union’s excessive new demands.

On the crucial issue of class size and composition, for example, the government proposes a $75-million-a-year “Learning Improvement Fund” to hire additional teachers, education assistants and other resources.

The union — saying the government is trying to escape the court judgment — has countered with a $225-million-a-year “Workload Fund” to be co-managed by the union and used “exclusively for the hiring of additional teachers.”

In other words, the Workload Fund would be used only to hire new members of the BCTF, because education assistants are represented by a different union.

Keep in mind that education assistants work directly with special-needs students, and they make a lot less money than teachers.

So if this dispute is really “all about the kids” as the BCTF says, why would they oppose spending more money on the education assistants that work with the most vulnerable kids of all?

And because they work cheaper than teachers, you could hire more EAs to boot, increasing the bang for the buck spent on special-needs kids.

Could it be because the union wants more union members paying more union dues into union coffers?

Say it isn’t so. After all, it’s all about the kids, right?

Smyth: If it?s really about the kids, why are teachers making excessive demands?

[noclue]

If the teachers are not happy with their union, can't they vote to de-unionize or seek new representation?

[MG1]

Originally Posted by noclue

If the teachers are not happy with their union, can't they vote to de-unionize or seek new representation?

Not as easy as it sounds. They can always teach at a private school.

[6o4__boi]

lol i swear people think that teachers actually WANT to be on strike or something.

i'm pretty sure if the tf held voting on the issue of continuing the strike, majority of teachers will say fuckkit let's go back to work. There's a reason why the TF is insisting it won't hold voting on whether or not they should continue the strike.

and some people seem to think teachers are getting strike pay for the strike action...they're not. Which amazes me because they couldn't make me go out there and picket for free, I don't give a shit for who or what cause, I'm not wasting my time for free.

[hotjoint]

I thought the teachers were going to vote to continue striking or go back to work? I heard that on the radio last week.

[gars]

Originally Posted by 6o4__boi

lol i swear people think that teachers actually WANT to be on strike or something.

i'm pretty sure if the tf held voting on the issue of continuing the strike, majority of teachers will say fuckkit let's go back to work. There's a reason why the TF is insisting it won't hold voting on whether or not they should continue the strike.

You'd be surprised how crazy some of the teachers and the union reps are. It is a secret vote (supposedly), but if word got out that you voted against the strike, you'd be ostracized within the teaching community.

My buddy told me that some of the strike votes were worded very strategically as well - like either you go on strike, or you take zero action. There is no middle ground. So obviously people had to vote for the strike.

[MG1]

Originally Posted by 6o4__boi

lol i swear people think that teachers actually WANT to be on strike or something.

i'm pretty sure if the tf held voting on the issue of continuing the strike, majority of teachers will say fuckkit let's go back to work. There's a reason why the TF is insisting it won't hold voting on whether or not they should continue the strike.

and some people seem to think teachers are getting strike pay for the strike action...they're not. Which amazes me because they couldn't make me go out there and picket for free, I don't give a shit for who or what cause, I'm not wasting my time for free.

BCTF used to have a shitload of money, but court costs fighting the government in previous bouts pretty much depleted the "war chest". The government would love to bust the union. Talking with long time friends who are teachers and principals, teachers in urban districts are pretty upset over the class size and composition thing. Their classes are filled with ESL students and those who come from not so ideal situations. I feel for those kids who come from bad situations. School is the only stable thing in their lives. Those kids get fed at school and get good role models. Every day they are not in school means no breakfast or lunch and constant verbal and emotional abuse.

As for the vote to go back, hell yeah, the majority will vote yes, but at the same time the wording and the conditions will have to be right. Both sides cannot lose face. They're both stubborn. Iker had he chance when Fassbender said go back to work, while talks continue. Problem is, can you put trust in a government that has ignored the law? I try to put myself in other people's shoes........

I've been to a few union meetings and rally's in my days as a labourer. There's no end to the craziness. Some people get so passionate. Usually, the ones who get heavily involved in unions are the ones who are not the greatest of workers. They're the ones who need a unions protection. Having said that, unions have shaped this country and have improved working conditions. I've worked in non union shops and the abuse I saw was pretty disgusting.

[Timpo]

ok when are they gonna start school again?

[Timpo]

Obviously they would have to catch up somehow when the school starts.
There's a talk about how kids won't be gettiing winter and spring break..or shorten the next summer break.

There are some talks about running school like Asian countries, like 8am-5 or 6pm. Get off early at 3pm on Saturdays, only Sunday off, etc.

[MG1]

I had lunch with my friends who are in the teaching profession and dude walks up and asks them, when are you guys going back to work? Not nasty or anything. One of my friends who I thought was a calm collected individual replies with, "Are you married? Okay, do you know when your wife is going to have an afair and leave your sorry ass?" "Yup, same answer you're gonna git from me." I was a bit shocked, but he's pretty bitter with it all. He wants no part in this. Here's what the friend who's a principal said to me. I'll have to finish this when I get home the iPhone keeps telling me low on battery.

[tiger_handheld]

From what I hear, some-->several--->maybe reaching almost half want class size and composition to be two separate issues. First they want to agree on the gov't wages then get back to school, then negotiate on composition. These are probably teachers that everyone mentions about... the ones that truly care for the kids...

I was also told the "real reason" why this is dragging out longer, so if you know this to be true, please confirm. I've only heard this from a couple of people in the game...

So, the teachers don't want to back down because if they do, it'll set presidence on their pending court appeal where gov't ripped out class compo from the contract. The gov't want teachers to agree on the current terms so it'll set presidence on the pending appealed ruling. So, no one want to back down because it'll pave the way for the future...

meanwhile at Translink, salary freeze includes bonus to make up for the upcoming freeze that makes up the shortfall... which was released on friday aftertnoon when 99.5% of the province was focused on going back to school tuesday.

gotta love this province we call home. the bullshit never stops.

[GLOW]

Originally Posted by MG1

Not as easy as it sounds. They can always teach at a private school.

i believe private schools have less benefits and don't pay very well. i have a friend that couldn't get a teaching job in public and taught at a few fancy private schools.