It's a well-written piece. While there is a lot of attention paid to teachers and their compensation, the key thing is - they educate our youth. You don't incite stellar performance by bullying or impeding your workforce, which is doubly true when it comes to teachers. They're not out to squander public dollars; like politics, the only real reason to get into teaching and take the hate that goes with the position is because you believe in what we do.
We need to follow the model teacers set, not disregard them.
From Warren Kinsella's site:
Mike Foulds says:
With all due respect, if your best source to form your opinion is your buddy’s wife’s experience you may not be fully informed.
I don’t complain about my salary. I’m not complaining about my pension. I’m not complaining about my sick days.
When two sides are negotiating and one side says “We’ll meet to negotiate but if you don’t like what we are offering we will force it upon you” that is bullying – pure and simple.
As to the details of my renumeration: you probably have made up your mind but I’ll give it a shot:
1) 20 sick days a year is based on the fact that I work directly with as many as 90 adolescents a day, indirectly with 1000 adolescents, and they are germ factories whose parents send them to school with colds and flus because they have no other choice. That works out to 2 sick days a month of work for a teacher. If you are a parent you have probably experienced having a cold or flu while trying to parent – multiply that by the number of kids I am responsible for as a teacher. The gratuity is for us not using as many sick days as we are given. It is paid out at .50 on the dollar for a max of 200 days. That means we are saving the province money every year by not using them and they pay us back at .50 on the dollar. It generally equals what a business person with the same credentials and experience would receive as a severance package upon retirement. We do not have short term disability – we have a sick day bank.
2) I don’t have a choice about the school year. It is set by the boards and the province. I do not want Christmas off – I am not Christian. I am forced to have it off. It is not a workers fault when their business is closed that they can’t work. I might prefer a longer work year and the added pay to work those extra hours. Many new teachers are desperate to teach summer school to make up for their meagre entry level pay.
3) I’ve worked in manufacturing – I made more, had a pension I didn’t pay half towards, had equivalent benefits, could take my vacation when I chose, and didn’t get saddled with student debt to be able to do it – I worked more hours was the only negative. So please spare me that comparison- I don’t need to ask my buddy whose wife worked in manufacturing to understand it.
And my last point: if your house burns down you don’t go and burn your neighbours house down so you’re equal, if I have my wallet stolen I don’t call the cops and ask them to take yours too- this is not a race to the bottom. I campaign hard for fellow workers in this province to get the benefits and working conditions they deserve. My pension, wages, and sick days did not cause this crisis. Why should I lose them to cure it? Attack the culprits who are raking in the money not your fellow workers.
Dalton and Duncan have decided to paint public sector unions as the bad guys and ask us to bear the brunt of the mistakes made by corporations and banks in 2007-08. We didn’t cause it and neither did you.
Best regards.
