Teacher bargaining

[George+]

Okey.
But don't keep repeating the lie that the BCTF contributes directly to the NDP.
They Don't.

There are 11 people on the BCTF exec. Even if they are at teaching max.
they would make less than one million . So stop exaggerating, also.

All of this is freely available online or by ASKING.

The BCTF wants free collective bargaining with mediation, and arbitration when needed.
The current government does not.

[Veovis]

The BCTF wants free collective bargaining with mediation, and arbitration when needed.
The current government does not.

If a group is requesting mediation from day one, it simply imply's to me that they plan on needing a professional in the room to regulate conduct. Are the BCTF teachers not supposed to be professionals? Always saying, it's someone else fault you can't behave, is a sign of someone who simply can't behave.

Keep in mind, it's not just the liberals, it's been every single government. At some point it becomes clear, it isn't the government that is causing bargaining issues.

Due to all that, the entire way it is done, has to change, but any suggestions that get made, the BCTF go on a war path, instead of taking it and creating a counter idea. The union simply does appear to be trying to build a better system for teachers, they just always seem to want to get in a fight so they can run around crying foul and I think in general the public has lost all sympathy for teachers now. I like my kids teachers, i think they are great, but I think their union is hurting them.

[George+]

Mediation would only apply when bargaining has bogged down. Perhaps there needs to be
a set, reasonable period for bargaining and then mediation, leading to compulsory third party
arbitration.

[George+]

The BCTF Newsletter also has audited financial statements in the issue just before the AGM

Ask a member for a copy.
Some retired teachers may have them.

[Urbane]

Great column that sums it all up really well:

VICTORIA – Like a bad reality show about a dysfunctional family, B.C. School Wars has lurched to life again for the 2013 election.

Coming soon to billboards and buses across the province: staged pictures of sad-faced kids crammed into dirty classrooms by a heartless government. It doesn’t even matter which government. This ritual combat went on through Social Credit and NDP governments too.

Premier Christy Clark opened the new season with her promised pitch to restructure bargaining. It suggested splitting up bargaining into traditional wage and benefit talks, and a separate table and fund for classroom size and support.

Cast in her familiar role of the sullen, rebellious teenager, BCTF president Susan Lambert staged a news conference to distort and mock the government’s offer.

A 10-year deal if we give up bargaining wages and classroom conditions? “Ludicrous.”

What’s ludicrous is her characterization of a formula to link teacher pay to nurses, post-secondary faculty and other government workers. Nurses are renowned for getting raises when no one else does, so this should be an opportunity for these powerful unions to co-ordinate.

But the BCTF can’t get along with other unions any more than it can negotiate with any discernible competence.

Lambert falsely claimed there was no consultation on the proposal. This reminded me how she low-balled the costs of her union’s demands by hundreds of millions during what passed for negotiations in last year’s strike season.

Behind the scenes, the BCTF executive and the school district bargaining agent had just settled on a mutual costing model. What this means is the school districts, which have to make payroll and balance budgets, have convinced the BCTF to stop misrepresenting costs. I’ll believe that when I see it.

Before Education Minister Don McRae had even spoken, BCTF vice-president Glen Hansman was growling his reply on Twitter: See you in court. That message presumably also goes for premier-in-waiting Adrian Dix, unless he replaces the hated B.C. Liberals in May, then quickly kneels before the BCTF and extends the key to the provincial treasury.

Two generations of British Columbians have been bullied by this bad drama, since Bill Vander Zalm decided an industrial union bargaining structure was just the ticket for public schools.

Students are taught by example, if not by blatant propaganda in classrooms, that all problems are solved by demanding more money from the government. After this conditioning, older students are sometimes pressed into service as union pickets.

There’s your Social Justice class, kids. Sorry about those sports teams and field trips, but we need those as bargaining chips to get more paid leave time.

To state the obvious, Clark and McRae staged this as a pre-election event to frame the issue. They knew their effort would be greeted as a declaration of war.

The main reason the BCTF agreed to a contract extension with a wage freeze last year? It wasn’t the blindingly obvious fact that every other public sector union had already taken two zeroes. It was strictly tactics.

The delay sets up the latest rematch of these old warriors in the spring election. The plan is to get the dreaded B.C. Liberals out and then start working over the weaker, more union-dependent NDP.

That’s who caved in earlier and gave the BCTF broad control over staffing levels, the proverbial key to the treasury.

Along with basic math and economics, a point the BCTF seems unable to grasp is that its strategy is self-defeating. Those sad kids are making more and more parents seek a better deal.

Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press and BCLocalnews.com

[George+]

Tom Fletcher

[Urbane]

Tom Fletcher

Another non-answer from George when he has no answer. Tom Fletcher is saying what I and many others on here have been saying, i.e. that the the BCTF play fast and loose with the truth. Lots of other good stuff in there too. I knew you couldn't refute any of Tom Fletcher's column because it's true.

[flamingfingers]

Tom Fletcher

Yep. What a laugh.

[Urbane]

LOL . . . yes, it's all about the kids.

PT Barnum sure had it right!

[logicalview]

Yet when the Tyee prints more union-funded lies mapleuglypie and George the failed school trustee candidate gush all over it. When its not union-funded crap, you bozos just attack the source. Union dinosaurs. The BCTF must go.

[George+]

Tom Fletcher has been refuted many times.

He lacks credibility because he refuses to
ask the BCTF for their point of view. He is obviously
a higly, personally, opinionated individual who impugns motives that
simply are not there. Must have had a tough time in school.

Just advise, Urbane, if you would like to hear the other side.

[Urbane]

Tom Fletcher has been refuted many times.

He lacks credibility because he refuses to
ask the BCTF for their point of view. He is obviously
a higly, personally, opinionated individual who impugns motives that
simply are not there. Must have had a tough time in school.

Just advise, Urbane, if you would like to hear the other side.

He lacks credibility with you because he doesn't gush over every word that Susan Lambert utters. We all know that the BCTF misrepresents the facts. Schools have actually been opened and expanded and education budgets have increased; not decreased. And the BCTF costing out of their contract demands are always way off the mark. And job actions do hurt kids. If that isn't the case why do teachers ever sponsor clubs, take field trips, do report cards, attend graduation ceremonies, or help students out of regular classroom hours? If cutting those things out doesn't hurt kids why do them in the first place?

Here's some advice: Just for a change how about if you look at the other side?? Those who keep advising others to do so usually are the ones not doing it themselves.

[Gone_Fishin]

I don't think the 2 union morons above even bothered to read Fletcher's column. They have their noses way too far up Lambert's butthole to understand what was said. That could explain their crappy outlook on life!

[George+]

The reality is that education funding needs a complete revamp.
Just ask any school trustee-the people making do.
Dumping on the union will not solve that. Even the trustees
realize that.

Ignoring the number of closed schools is just...ignorant.
Children today have access to all kinds of cultural/sports
programs outside the school.
Perhaps if parents want extra school activities they should pay for them
the same as out of school activities. Or paid coaches/sponsors, as in the American system

You are dreaming if you think education funding has kept
up with inflation. And so is Tom Fletcher.
http://www.cufa.bc.ca/index.php?option= ... cation-fu..
http://bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/Pub ... licies.pdf
Of course if ya don't want to read it, ya don't want to read it.

I read Fletcher's columns and cringe-going nowhere.

[George+]

AND
Fletcher is just plain wrong, again, when he states:

"That’s who (the NDP) caved in earlier and gave the BCTF broad control over staffing levels, the proverbial key to the treasury."

This actually happened under Bill vanderZalm and the Social Credit Party.