Okay I figured it out...Strike from Teachers point of view! Good Evening, I thought I would share a post from a Teacher named Tom Nguyen, who really hits the nail on the head. It was posted on the Presidents List Serve. Thank you to him for his thoughts. This is a lengthy read, but valuable to hear his thoughts. I know it mirrored alot of things I am thinking about. Dear colleagues, During these difficult times, I would like to encourage everyone to remember the importance of our job, to remember the impact that we have on students, families and society, and to remember to stop apologizing. Many of these facts, comments, and statistics come from a variety of sources. I have simply compiled them according to my own thoughts and have editorialized sections. Please excuse my lack of citations (especially you English teachers). Remember. Teachers are not greedy. Although I wasn’t teaching in the 90’s, I know some of you were teaching. And it was at that time that we had given up salary (in the late 90’s) to get class size, specialist teacher ratios, etc. in the collective agreement. As a collective, we WILLINGLY negotiated those clauses. However, those clauses were stripped away in 2002 with Bills 27 and 28 and we were not compensated. Hence we have been behind (in salaries) right from that point on. This is why we are at the bottom of the scale in terms of how we are paid in comparison to other provinces and this is why the BCTF has taken the government to court (and won, TWICE). Now, BC has the worst student to educator ratio in the country. BC’s ratio is 16.8 students per educator; the national average is13 students per educator. In addition to this the Consumer Price Index (that is related to Cost of Living as well as inflation) went up 1.3% in 2010, 2.4% in 2011, and 1.1% in 2012 (these are the most current stats I could find). During this time, we have been mandated with zeros. Remember. Teachers are hard working. The amount of education that is required to become a teacher is a minimum of 5 years. New teachers have large student loans to pay off. New teachers often need to TOC for a while before they can get a contract position with a steady pay cheque (so they often make less in their first few years). This is especially true in the past 5 years of our profession. And it currently takes 11 years of steady contracted work to get to the top of the scale. What this translates to is that most teachers are, AT LEAST, in their mid to late 30’s before they get to the top in BC, which is 2nd from the bottom in Canada. Remember. Teachers care about the students we teach. The Government underfunds us year after year. This is important, because the government keeps making it sound like it would break the bank if they were to give in to us. However, the government spends $1000 less per student than the national average. This means other provinces pay lots more than BC on education. If the government spent the national average, there would be another $540 million dollars available – enough to cover class size/composition/specialist teachers AND a wage increase. The Government spends $44 billion dollars total in their budget. $540 million is only 1.2% of that budget, or a 7% increase of what they currently spend on Education. Even just 1% of the provincial budget is $440 million – again, easily enough to cover what we are asking. Other provinces are appear to be able to find the money. Why can’t BC? We have no more arena roofs to build, do we? Remember. Teachers are not responsible for the tough economic times. District shortfalls (and cuts for next year, and the next, and the next, and so on and so on) are due to government not funding things like increases to MSP premiums, BC hydro increases, and CUPE wage increases. The government has continued with the practice of freezing their per student funding for the last several years, while also downloading costs to districts and then demanding that those districts produce a balanced budget or else get fired. The Cowichan School Board stood up to the government and attempted to pass a deficit budget, only to be replaced by a government appointee. Remember. Teachers should be respected and not belittled by our government. The Minister of Education and the Premier are making it sound like teachers are causing students to experience instability. What causes instability is lack of funding for programs and resources, services and support. When a student needs speech and language help and cannot receive it, that causes instability. When a student needs more one on one help or gifted support and cannot get it, that causes instability. When there are cuts to music, trades, library, and learning resources due to inadequate funding, that causes instability. Are students caught in the middle due to our striking action? Of course they are. However, students are and have been caught in the middle regardless because of government’s refusal to fund public education. Remember. Teachers deserve job security. This year, 632 teachers in Coquitlam alone will be losing their jobs. There are 2200 teachers in Coquitlam and 1,785 of them are full time. That means about one third of all Coquitlam teachers do not have job security. Superintendant Tom Grant has already said that he expects AT LEAST 70-90 teachers to not get hired back. By his definition of being hired back, that might actually translate closer to 250-300 teachers. Remember, he claims that out of the nearly 500 layoffs from last year, only 2 teachers did not get rehired “in some form” this past year. Of course, he coincidentally neglected to mention that actually over 100 teachers were not presented with jobs by the beginning of September 2013, and it is only now, in MAY of 2014 that the district has been able to offer almost all of last year’s layoffs with some form of employment. Remember, he is not talking about full-time work. At no point did he mention that. He is merely taking about employment, being it part time, temporary contracts, short term contracts, or otherwise. Remember. Our union is not militant. In the previous round of bargaining, the government mandate dictated two years at “net zero.” Translated, that meant unions could secure increases in wages or benefits only by making concessions elsewhere in their own contract, such as agreeing to a longer work week, trimming holidays or other benefits. Therefore, the last completed settlement with teachers, concluded under mediator Charles Jago, with a “net zero” deal for the two years ending June 30, 2013. In this last bargaining round, the Liberals insisted on what was called “cooperative gain-sharing” for two years. Translated, that meant a 3-4% increase in wages and benefits over two years, paid for by savings or cuts elsewhere in program budgets. Applying the “one size fits all” approach to public sector bargaining, the teachers should be in line for a settlement under the “cooperative gains” mandate and would thus be in line for an increase of up to four per cent over two years. Instead, the government’s opening offer in current negotiations was 0.5% upon ratification of the next contract (but not retroactive, which means another zero for 2013-2014) and a further 0.5% the following year if offset by reductions in the sick leave provisions. So settlements of up to 4% for most other public sector workers and 1% for teachers, partly predicated on concessions is supposed to sound reasonable? Remember. Teachers need to have faith in our union. We voted 89% in favour of a three step (or three “phase”) plan. This is the agreed upon phase 2. Teachers do not want to donate their wages. Our union does not want us to donate our wages. However, some CUPE locals on Vancouver Island got 6% over 3 years. The Victoria City police got 8.45% over 3 years. The United Steelworkers (local 7619) got 20% over 5 years with a $10,000 signing bonus. These are just some examples of what other unions are doing for their members. Remember. We should not feel ashamed to make good pay just because we belong to the public sector. Teachers are paid over 10 months, unless they opt into an annual savings plan that allows them to be paid out those savings during the summer. The two-week Christmas break and the one-week spring break are considered vacation time. Teachers in most districts do not work during the summer and their annual salary does not account for them working in the summer. Many districts have changed to a two-week spring break, but this is not additional vacation time, it is made up in an adjustment to the number of minutes worked in each day. Teachers do not get more vacation time with more years of service. Teachers do not get overtime pay. Remember. The government does not respect us. When the HEU (Health Employees Union) and the other 47,000 Health Care Workers voted to strike, the province appointed a mediator immediately. When teachers take job action, we are fined $5 million a month, 5% in wages, or 10% in wages. The government claims that they took a “significant” step in bargaining, but the BCTF has not moved from their position. Anyone who takes the time to read the proposal can pinpoint the inaccuracies. The initial government offer was 6.5% over 6 years with an additional 4 years (totaling 10) tied to GDP. The current government offer is STILL 6.5% over 6 years. However, the government is putting the remaining 4 years to battle at another time. Has the government really changed its position? Has it really taken a step closer towards meaningful negotiation? Remember. This is a government with a different set of priorities. In 2001, the value of coal production was $959 million. By 2012, it became $5.06 billion, an increase of 527%. The value of metals production in 2001 was $1.39 billion. In 2012, it was $2.45 billion, an increase of 76%. The value of industrial minerals in 2001 was $296 million. That increased to $472 million in 2012, an increase of 60%. In comparison, if we look at the total B.C. natural-resource tax revenue in 2001, we see it was about $4.2 billion. In 2013, that figure had declined to about $2.5 billion. If we look at what the government used to spend on education, in 2000-2001, they spent 29.26% of their total operating expenses on education (looking at their “Expense by function” chart, not the ‘Expense by ministry” chart). In 2013-2014, using the equivalent chart, they are spending 27.1% on education. If the government spent 29.26% instead, like they used to do, we would have $960 million dollars more to spend on education! Again, that would more than cover the shortfalls we are facing now. No wonder the government keeps fighting the court battle. The government has money – they just choose not to spend it on public education. Remember. Solidarity makes us stronger. When we illegally went on strike in 2005 for two weeks, we received a $4000 signing bonus and we received a 16% raise. First year teacher salaries went up from $39,312 to $45,909. Top of the scale teachers with a Master’s degree had their salaries go up from $69,857 to $81,488. Solidarity affects all teachers: young, old, and retiring. On a final note, I leave you with a question. Is the government’s message of declining enrollment an accurate or real representation of our society? From 2002 until 2012, we have had 197 schools closed. In 2007, there were 544,748 students in public schools and 65,967 students in private school. In 2011, there were 549, 836 students in public schools and 70,444 students in private school. In other words, there have been 5,000 more students enrolled in public schools and an additional 5,000 more students enrolled in Private schools. Where is the declining enrolment? Yours in solidarity, Tom Nguyen Charles Best Secondary SD43
Posted on: Thu, 22 May 2014 19:17:48 +0000
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