BREAKING NEWS - BCTF Settle Contract Before Deadline
Amazing! I mean, just hours before the settlement was announced, BCTF President Jinny "Vader" Sims gleefully told reporters that she did not believe a compromise could be reached. So what happened? Well, we will have more on that story but the long and short of it is other folks on the bargaining team gave Jinny's big ol' basketball of a head a shake and away they went.The teachers will receive a 16% increase over the next five years along with a signing bonus of $4,000 - up 8.1% or $300 from the original $3,700. This is great news for parents, students and teachers throughout the province and bad news for Jinny as she has fulfilled her "usefulness" for the next five years.
With this agreement in place it means the BC Government was able to sign 100% of the public service contracts before the deadlines meaning NO STRIKES! Premier Gordon "Threepeat" Campbell and Carole "For the love of God not James" Taylor are to be congratulated. Or ridiculed?...nah, I'll be good to them.
With this agreement in place it means the BC Government was able to sign 100% of the public service contracts before the deadlines meaning NO STRIKES! Premier Gordon "Threepeat" Campbell and Carole "For the love of God not James" Taylor are to be congratulated. Or ridiculed?...nah, I'll be good to them.
What do I think of the deal? I was hoping the BCTF would be as stupid as always and reject the deal. This makes my writing much, MUCH easier. Alas, this was not to be. What steams me most is that just this morning the head honcho of this intrepid Poly Blog, Edward "the Suck Up" Itorial wrote:
My opinion is that the offer which should be offered and accepted is 13% over four years or 17% over five years. This shows a give and take on both slides and guarantees labour peace and stability for our teachers, parents and students.
So what will happen? Hopefully both Sid (the Government) and Nancy (BCTF) can get this done before the deadline with a minimal amount of conflict and bloodshed. Unlike the real Sid and Nancy...and the past with the Government and BCTF.
This means Itorial was almost dead on with his analysis. @#$%.
The teachers will ratify this agreement faster than Jinny rushing to the front of a buffet line. For more views on this story, click the links below:
CKNW News - BCTF and Employers reach a deal
News 1130 - Teachers strike a deal
BCTF.ca - Lengthy negotiations result in teachers' settlement
BCTF.ca - Teachers achieve significant gains
BCPSEA website - Public School Employers and BC Teachers' Federation reach tentative deal
Province of BC - Five Year Agreement Reached For Teachers
Note from Carole Taylor - B.C.'s Neogotiating Framework - A Milestone In Labour Relations
Vancouver Sun - Teachers settle at last minute for 16% over 5 years
Vancouver Province - B.C. teachers reach deal, win bonus
Vancouver Province - B.C. teachers reach tentative agreement just under the wire
CBC - B.C. teachers reach deal as deadline looms
posted by BC Poly Blog at 10:50 PM
41 Comments:
Greed wins out every time!!!!
Horny Toad
But it still has to be ratified.....and not until September when all the teachers are back from their NINE week holiday. Alberta tried for a long contract a few years ago and the deal fell apart when the members voted on it. Five years without the opportunity to ratchet up the rhetoric over a contract? What are the chances this will actually go through?
Actually, there are about 4000 of them. 4000 loonies make a mighty tempting pile - it must have taken a big dog....maybe BCPSEA picked one up at the pound
Give it a rest.
The teachers will vote to ratify the deal.
The only thing that won't change is this blog and the idiots that
run it.
Enjoy the summer, kids and be sure to pick up the new jeans and shirt before going to pick up the new pens, pencils and notebooks.
Sure they will. More than 3% a year and $4000 bucks.
I would.
This is great news. History in the making!
This is great news. I'm sure you're disappointed polyblog.
How you can celebrate this as some kind of accomplishment is truly beyond me.
The BC Liberal Party has just sold its soul. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell didn't vote for this.
100% of the contract signed! Thank-you Gordo and Carole and the BC Liberals for doing what no other Government could.
Anon 1:42, what are you smoking? The NDP government of old could have signed a contract handing over $140 MILLION dollars in signing bonuses and billions of dollars in increases to one union. Anyone could. But even the easy spending, reckless Clark-era NDP thought that was a bit too rich for their union buddies, prefering legislation. What does that say about the BC Liberals? Whose spending like a drunken sailor now?
The reason itorial was so close in his so called analysis is that he was being fed info about the government's latest offer from someone on the inside probably some gov mla's ca and wanted to do what he could to make a deal not happen. you forgot to thank the people at the bargaining table for their hard work the employers association and the bctf. oh I forgot the bctf are always the bad guys.
Good bye BC Liberals. Hello New NDP!
So here is my question. Why did the BCTF say it was unfair and misleading for the Government to advertise a deal that included the Ready recommendations that included the one time disability payment and salary grid harmonization and today the BCTF now include the very same Ready recommendations in promoting the deal to the membership?
If you exclude the Ready recommendations as the BCTF suggested should have been done only two days ago I see 12% over five years, certainly in line with the 10% that the government was offering over 4 years. The signing bonus and long term bonus were already on the table so nothing changed there. In fact if I look at those Government adds today they seem bang on, with the exception that one extra year was added at 2% instead of 2.5% and the .5 was used to take the cash bonus up from $ 3,700 to $ 4,000
Me thinks mushy math is being used by the BCTF.
" oh I forgot the bctf are always the bad guys."
Thats because this communist dominated, undemocratic organization "IS" always the bad guy.
Its OK for them to advertise but not for the govt to advertise.
The public was getting sick of thier "its all for the students" bullshit. Had they not signed there would be NO public support for them. People aren't stupid , they can spot greed. And thats what the BCTF is all about. To hell with students, parents and everyone else. Just give us more money.
Horny Toad
The teachers who will vote on the contract are the same moonbats who elected Jinny Vader and the other Marxist wackados in the BCTF. They may very well reject the proposed contract on “principle”, doing it for the children, of course; and, go n to demand even more money (in an fit of “selfless sacrifice” for the children, not greed, of course).
One of the expected answer is of course from folks like Horny Toad.
Two sides negotiated, one with all the government and the ability to force the other side back by legislation. But you far righters got it wrong. The spinning has already started.
The idea that the teachers rejecting the tentative agreement is highly unlikely, even those the right wingers are clinging to that idea. Way to go Jinny. Now I guess this blog will be concentrating on the BC Fed.
I would have liked to see these left winged commies die on the vine. I guess the Libs are after the teachers vote.
Teachers get a signing bonus?!
Does anyone else see this as wrong?
GCP
Hey 5:53
Why is it that some folks believe a union person is automatically a Communist? The Communist party in
BC had a few dozen members back when George Hewison was the leader.( around 20 years ago) He went to Ontario and they got even smaller. I rather doubt using the numbers that exist in BC that very few, if any persons with a teachers degree might actually belong to that party. and if one actually was a Communits, last time I looked being a member of that party was legal. The Liberals arn't looking for anything beyond the 2010 Olympics and are willing to spend gobs of your money on that two week circus.
Communism, socialism, capitalism and the rest of the 'ism's are belief sets. When you demonstrate a fondness for aspects of one of the belief sets don't be surprised if others jump to the conclusion that you can be labelled with that particular 'ism.
While I'm at it, I also want to take issue with those who keep jumping onto this blog with boring, uninspired negative one liners about the partisan nature of this blogg.
Get over it, or at the very least make your insults a little more entertaining.
Everyone is partisan to one degree or another. Get over that too.
Have a nice day.
gcpresto,
Why do you see it as wrong that the teachers get a signing bonus? Did they not live up to the deal set by the government to agree on a contract within the allotted time?
Why should teachers be treated differently than any of the other unions that settled, or did you find the use of bonuses wrong in general?
There are 38,000 teachers and the signing bonus is $4000 taxpayer dollars. Even using fuzzy math that adds up to $156 million dollars. Poof, gone.
What happened to class size and support for special needs kids and all the other things that teachers said were their priorities?
When the union started to use the class size stick a few years ago someone suggested that teachers should be paid per student and see how fast they would line up for classes of 30 plus students.
Its hard not to be cynical.
Anyone else notice how redundant school boards were in this whole process?
Other unions were also paid bonuses...why should teachers be vilified for taking what the government has offered them?! Do you bad-mouth other unions for accepting their bonuses which just as easily could have been put towards education?
Teachers already gave up two weeks of pay during the strike for classroom issues. This time around, the BCTF and most teachers will admit straight out - these negotiations were about a "fair settlement" - as in, raises meeting the cost-of-living increases for the first time in 10 years. If that seems mercenary to you, well so be it. Teachers work hard and expect to be compensated for it. Welcome to the real world, not some airy-fairy fantasy where teachers would gladly work for free because your (and my) kids are just so darn wonderful.
Seems to me that teachers are as damned for making a settlement as they would have been for not making one.
Just as an aside, remember that those bonuses are taxed at about 50%...what the government giveth, the government taketh away!
Two quick points : teachers don't work too hard. 184 days/yr on average. That's 37 thirty-hour weeks, or 1110 hrs/yr.
As to taxes, because about half of them make over $61K/yr their income is taxed at the maximum marginal rate. However, thanks to the Campbell tax cut, that rate is 5% lower than it was under the NDP. Dropped from 48% of gross income to 43%. For a teacher at top of grid who gets $65K/yr this means $3250/yr in the pocket for each of the last 5 years. Of course, according to them, the tax cut only benefits the rich.
30 hours a week...you make me laugh.
Maybe if there wasn't such a thing as planning, marking, photocopying, making homework packages endlessly for parents who decide to take their kids skiing for a week, tutuorials, parent-teacher interviews, phonecalls and emails, website maintenance for homework, keeping mark databases up to date, staff meetings after school, prepping labs (I teach science), reading up on new discoveries to inspire my students, etc.
That's like saying a police officer only works a couple of hours a day, because most of the time they are just riding around in a car or sitting at a desk, instead of dealing with the bad guys!
"Teachers already gave up two weeks of pay during the strike for classroom issues."
Teachers gave up two weeks of pay during the strike BECAUSE THEY WENT ON AN ILLEGAL strike.
I talked to a grade 12 grad yesterday who considered his teachers nothing more than common criminals. So don't give me that "victim" crap that they GAVE UP pay.
"Teachers work hard and expect to be compensated for it".
You should have said many teachers work hard. Many don't work near hard enough.
When I went to university there was a saying that said "those who can do and those who can't teach". That is just as relevant today as ever. Kids coming out of high school today are ill-equiped for what lies ahead. Instead of teaching kids HOW to think they are more interested in teaching kids "WHAT" to think. Many teachers ,and the BCTF, are more concerned with pushing the gay marriage agenda under the guise of tolerance rather than trying to equip kids with the abilitiy to succeed in the real world.And its no wonder teachers have little effect on curbing bullying. The BCTF model is based on bullying. So its basically "do as I say, not as I do. Some role model teachers make.
Horny Toad
Well this article at least now has more than one side being discused. Teacher bad, Jenni,awful, communists, greedy, was getting a bit lame. Folks like horney toad will never like anything connected to unions it seems. Maybe he would lighten up if he realised the NHL Hockey players have been ruled by the Labour relations Board to be a union. One of those union brothers just got mega millions for standing in a goal crease for a couple of periods, once in a while. around 60 minutes or so. But like teachers he spends most of his time getting ready to do the goal job. Lots of jobs have more preparation, record keeping, coaching and so on.
"Maybe he would lighten up if he realised the NHL Hockey players have been ruled by the Labour relations Board to be a union. One of those union brothers just got mega millions for standing in a goal crease for a couple of periods, once in a while. around 60 minutes or so."
Interesting.
Considering during the player strike there were no burn barrels or placarded picket lines at GM Place and Brother Sinclair didn't ask for the other unions to have a sympathy strike.
Certainly no media events whereby the fans could have watched on the 6 PM news Morrison, Auld, Cloutier, Linden, Bertsnoozie, etc throwing their sticks into the burn barrel as a sign of protest over the talks..
stop spitting sour grapes...get on with it...kids, parents, teachers need a good summer break...lets look forward to a school start with no strikes in sight for 5 years...some good teaching and learning is going to happen
"Maybe he would lighten up if he realised the NHL Hockey players have been ruled by the Labour relations Board to be a union. One of those union brothers just got mega millions for standing in a goal crease for a couple of periods, once in a while. around 60 minutes or so. But like teachers he spends most of his time getting ready to do the goal job."
The differnce is if one of those mega million players screws up and doesn't perform he's gone.Unlike teachers who are protected by thier union whether thet do a good jog or not.
Horny toad
anon 7:52
Define "good"
And, since when does learning have anything to do with collective bargaining and schools?
this is where the whole thing really gets me. teachers can demand more stuff for themselves and good on them when they achieve it.
But to try and hold themselves up in some kind of altruistic light because they have used kids as a bargaining chip.
Can't have it both ways folks and teachers come across as hypocrites when they try.
We upped our income. Up yours!
Incomes up but not by that much. A teacher who gets $65K/yr now ($37.050 after taxes) wil be getting $75,400/yr ($42,978 after taxes) in 2011. That's an increase of $5928/yr in after-tax dollars. Call it $6K. $6,000 x 34,000 teachers = $204 Million. The K-12 budget this year was a little over $5 Billion. The raise makes up about 4% of this amount after 5 years. Pocket change. Spending was already growing at this rate without the settlement and with falling enrollment.
As large numbers of boomer teachers take early retirement, average salaries will fall, probably balancing out the wage increment. The added cost can be recovered by putting an additional 1 or 2 cents tax on a case of beer or litre of gasoline. That's also a good way to get it back from the teachers. The good news? Teachers' incomes remain firmly in the top 10% of Canadian wages, where they've been fopr the last 20 years.
Anon 10:50am
Everyone else compares gross earnings - stick to apples and stop throwing in oranges. It is disingenuous at best.
Actually, if you want to start playing with numbers, there is a case to be made for grossing up a teachers salary from 10 months to 12.
Using your examples - a teacher who currently makes $65K is actually making $78K when it is annualized. In five years they will be making $90.48K
Similarly, you are simply playing a guessing game when you estimate taxes. Individuals are in different tax situations. For instance, an individual could place the full amount of their bonus in an RRSP and withdraw it during retirement at a lower tax rate. Or an individual could place it in an RESP for two or more children and recieve the full benefit of the federal rebate (10% I believe) in the first year and tax sheltered earnings after that. The possibilities and permeations are endless - again, the reason the rest of the world compares gross salaries.
After five years of fiscally sound management at the provincial and federal levels - assuming a constant of governing parties rather than the constant of tax rates that you have used - the net income of teachers may be substantially higher than the number you have chosen (accent on "chosen") would be significantly overstated.
Brandon;
As a BC Liberal I disagree. Watch us soar in the polls. 4 - 5 years of labour peace will allow our economic engines go into overdrive. This means our province will now have the resources to fully re-build our infrastructure AND start to reduce debt.
This means better chances of winning in 2009 and putting us onto a good footing for 2013.
If cutting deal's like these helps us keep the Socialists out and the Province moving forward with a plan for prosperity, I say sign.
Sold out? How so? You wanted to shut the schools down for September? Break the BCTF Union?
No, Like the Nurse's we will show them there is a better way. Maybe not the union executives, but the teachers. Slowly it will happen.
You watch and see.
6:43 must be really concerned that he finds it normal to "Cut deals to keep the socialists out" Thesame fellow would be making lots of noise if the oppostion takes over and did similar deals with labour. Gordo used to make frantic comments while in opposition and in his firt term, suddenly he is getting quite good at bailing out our tax dollars. But of course the bid deal is the Olympics and for that the sky is thge limit
"As a BC Liberal I disagree. Watch us soar in the polls. 4 - 5 years"
Someone obviously doesn't know their fundamentals.
Every political party peaks. There's a limit (ceiling) as to how far a park can go. The BC Liberals are jsut about there and will level off. Even sink.
If any BC Liberal dreams of a 77 vs. 2 majority in 2009, dream on.
Ain't going to happen.
What is going to happen is that some BC Liberals are going to get so blindly loyal to Gordon Campbell, which will in turn feed his arrogance and he'll justify his legendary micromanging of the caucus and party, and it will feed on itself.
Watch for Gordon to be the political Superhero at this fall's
BC Liberal convention. They'll parade him around like he's some kind of god.
The smart BC Liberal will watch the opposition and verbally smack the BC Liberal MLA if he or she commits a stupid error that would affect the chances of getting elected.
The cost of the olympics doesn't even come close to what we would pay for the advertising and promotion BC will be rewarded. We will benefit from years of increased tourism, world positioning and economic benefits from this.
Ever hear of Torino before the Olympics? not many did. I have two friends that have gone there this summer.
It works. And I back the Games.
Who are you kidding? The BC Libs will get a boost from this deal just like they did with the others. They will ride an unnaturally high wave in the polls for a while then dip.
If there are no scandals they will go into the next election at a higher rate than any political party in BC has done in decades.
And they will most likely win.
Complacently is their biggest enemy now.
It should be interesting to watch.
10:50 am:
If "Teachers' incomes remain firmly in the top 10% of Canadian wages, where they've been fopr the last 20 years." what was all the fuss about?
If there are no scandals they will go into the next election at a higher rate than any political party in BC has done in decades.
Not likely, the NDP will move up
and close in on the perceived gap, but not enough to pass the Liberals.
Scandals are always possibility
even with the excessive micromanaging done by the Premier.
It's the kind and size that matter.
Every government has at least one or more scandals of varying size.
As for the higher rate than any
political party in BC..
That's possible, but most likely
isn't going to happen.
The BC Liberals are reaching the point of peaking off and then will
slide.
When that happens, watch for the BC Liberals to wave off the polls and say "the only one that counts is on election day".
The BC Liberals will slip and erode in support, since the outcome
of the teacher's negotiations will
lose interest, and the NDP will
chip away at the BC Liberals.
They're very good about doing that.
Be there when they find out something interesting.
"And they will most likely win."
That's not hard to figure out.
Bad part of another win is that it will add fuel to the arrogance fire.
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