Power of the Union

[shawn]

Even with the Liberals in power for the past few years it seems that the Unions still have all the power in this Province.

Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of the Union is great, protecting workers against injustices and ensuring that they have a fair wage.

On the other hand when you have things like the Government and Unions mixing together, it is not a good thing.

ie
[
Teachers threatening to strike this year provincewide. This is really said because the people that will suffer is our kids.

Remember the a few years back when the transit strike was going on? It lasted to close to a half yr. That is just asinine.

Very unhealthy Garbage strikes that last for months that attract rats and other disease carrying critters.

Skytrain operaters walking off the job anytime they feel they are treated badly.

Colleges that strike mid term and if a student loses his tuition money...oh well SOL.

Our ports. Lots of supplies are waiting there and if somebody decides to hire somebody to pick up their stuff for them, they get shot at.

Is it just me or does the post office threaten to strike almost every around Christmas time so they have more leverage.

I was not a huge fan of Ronald Reagon, but do you remember the mid-eightys when the traffic controllers went on strike and Reagon fired them all? I think that is a little extreme, but I wish there was something we could do to find a balance between Government and Unions

 

[noneasgood]

Even with the Liberals in power for the past few years it seems that the Unions still have all the power in this Province.

Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of the Union is great, protecting workers against injustices and ensuring that they have a fair wage.

On the other hand when you have things like the Government and Unions mixing together, it is not a good thing.

ie
[
Teachers threatening to strike this year provincewide. This is really said because the people that will suffer is our kids.

Remember the a few years back when the transit strike was going on? It lasted to close to a half yr. That is just asinine.

Very unhealthy Garbage strikes that last for months that attract rats and other disease carrying critters.

Skytrain operaters walking off the job anytime they feel they are treated badly.

Colleges that strike mid term and if a student loses his tuition money...oh well SOL.

Our ports. Lots of supplies are waiting there and if somebody decides to hire somebody to pick up their stuff for them, they get shot at.

Is it just me or does the post office threaten to strike almost every around Christmas time so they have more leverage.

I was not a huge fan of Ronald Reagon, but do you remember the mid-eightys when the traffic controllers went on strike and Reagon fired them all? I think that is a little extreme, but I wish there was something we could do to find a balance between Government and Unions

I'm normally not a nit picker for spelling but Reagon is actually spellled Reagan.

Anyway I agree with you're basic points. Unions in a market place sometimes ensure that employees are treated fairly. But they also go overboard in many cases. Government union workers are an unequivical disaster for the taxpayer. Not market place exists and the government is spending (OPM) other peoples money. Both are bad combinations. Add that to the fact that some of the service they provide are basically essential (ie ferry service to Van Island,) education, health care, and you have basically a small segment of society blackmailing the rest of society. And if wages and benefits are compared (when they can be) to the private sector, they are on average significantly higher. Much of it due to their inflation adjusted pension plans everybody wishes they had.

 

[rambler6]

Teachers

I have nothing but respect for them. I couldn't do it, I know that much. I would kill the little rug rats. They deserve to bargain in good faith which this gov't will not do with anyone. One friend went from having 22 kids in her class to 35 in one summer. Six were special needs with no assistance. She has never had any special needs training. This is just my opinion, but a bit of the surplus should go to getting the education system back in order.

 

[noneasgood]

I have nothing but respect for them. I couldn't do it, I know that much. I would kill the little rug rats. They deserve to bargain in good faith which this gov't will not do with anyone. One friend went from having 22 kids in her class to 35 in one summer. Six were special needs with no assistance. She has never had any special needs training. This is just my opinion, but a bit of the surplus should go to getting the education system back in order.

I have respect for teachers on some level and I some level I don't. Firstly how do you determine who is a good teacher and who isn't? And if you determine it by student/parent feedback and perhaps test results, how do you get rid of the one's who aren't good? Then there is the constant issue of whining for more money. I know of three teachers who own multiple properties, they aren't poor.

Thirdly, class size, appears to be a red herring, at least according the the CD Howe Institute.

Smaller classes don't make for smarter kids
C.D. Howe report

Armando D'Andrea; with files from Tim Naumetz
National Post; with files from CanWest News Service

There is no solid evidence to suggest smaller class sizes boost academic student achievement, according to a report released yesterday by the C.D. Howe Institute.

The report suggests millions of dollars spent lowering class sizes across the country would be better used improving teacher development.

"Because reducing class size is enormously expensive, it is very likely that the money being spent there could be better spent on other educational policies, such as continuous teacher training, which, unlike class-size reduction, have been shown to improve student performance," the report by the Toronto-based think-tank says.

The report comes on the heels of recent moves by some provincial governments to reduce class numbers, among them Ontario's infusion of money to hire more teachers.

The province spent $90-million in 2004/05, will increase funding to $126-million this year and anticipates a boost of $450-million by 2007/08 in an effort to cap class sizes.

The report criticizes this strategy on the basis of studies that it says showed "no solid base of empirical evidence to show that smaller classes improve student achievement."

The report reviews a Canadian study from the 1970s that focused on four classes ranging in size from 16 students to 37 students, and found that "there were no significant differences attributable to class size for achievement in art, composition, vocabulary, reading and mathematics problem solving" between the class with 16 students and that with 37.

The report also cites U.S. studies it says showed a decline in student-teacher ratios without a corresponding increase in student achievement. An international study showed countries like South Korea, with larger class sizes, outperformed richer countries like the United States and Canada, where class sizes were smaller, in math.

The report suggests student performance does not improve when class size drops because the teachers hired to lower the numbers are weaker. "Reducing class size invariably means increasing the number of teachers, and it may be that hiring more teachers forces a school, board or jurisdiction to dip into the pool of less able teachers," it says.

Yvan Guillemette, an institute policy analyst, said class-size reduction may be useful in some cases, but it should not be used as a "blanket strategy" to improve education. "It's so expensive ... I think it just helps teachers more than students," he said. "And it's not really surprising that politicians are responsive to what teachers want."

The report drew some sharp response from the teaching profession. Winston Carter, president-designate of the Canadian Federation of Teachers, reacted angrily to the C.D. Howe contention that pressure for smaller classes comes primarily from unions representing teachers who want to reduce their workload. He said other U.S. reports have confirmed ''without a doubt'' that smaller classes create a richer learning environment for children and a better teaching environment for instructors.

Donna Marie Kennedy, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, said the report's bottom-line analysis doesn't look at the reality of classroom education.

And if the teachers what to dispute this, fine, let's see their empirical evidence. What are these "other U.S. reports"? Why not name them?

 

[rambler6]

Teachers

I could give a rats ass about some US report. Take a look at the education system in the states. Haven't heard to many good things about the k to 12 system. You can have anyone write a report on anything if you pay them enough.

All I know is if I ever have a rug rat I would rather have them in a class of 20 vs 35 with 6 speds in it.

As far as money goes, how many people on this board make more than a teacher. Top pay for a teacher is 65k. That's if you have a masters degree. Seven years of school for 65k a year. No thanks.

And every year having to meet a couple times with 35 sets of parents who all think that little Johnny is special and better than everyone. Why isn't he doing better? My son/daughter is not disruptive. How could you say that. It has to be your teaching style.

All that for the grand total of 65k a year max. No thanks.

 

[dexi]

Parents always throw a shit fit when teachers strike. "They're hurting our children!" they scream, like martyrs.

Truth is, the reason parents are so upset is that a school is government sponsored day care for their kids. If they're not in school, they have to pay several hundred dollars a month for someone to take care of them, or stop working to take care of them themselves.

So, whenever there's a teachers strike, parents go berzerk. They don't pick a side based on the issues and which will have the best long term effect on their kids (lets face it, some of the class size issues really should be important to them as parents), they pick a side based on who will get their kids back in free day care the fastest.

 

[Ilovethemall]

I hate unions....but

teachers are the ones guiding and educating the next generation - should we not pay them well enough to attract the best teachers available?

.....and nurses - I could never do that job - pay them whatever they require.

As for the rest of the unions out there - fuck'em....bunch of slackass SOB's

 

[wolverine]

Unions served their purpose way back in the early 20th Century...without them, there would be no 40 hour work week, no weekends off, no lunch/coffee breaks, no minimum wage, no child labor. But today - most unions are irrelevent because most labor laws are in place to enforce fair working conditions. In many professions today, the companies have to compete with each other for skilled and experienced resources, so they have to provide the means to attract them and keep them.

Professions that definitely don't need a union:
- doctors
- airline pilots
- professional athletes

 

[Damaged]

I could give a rats ass about some US report. Take a look at the education system in the states. Haven't heard to many good things about the k to 12 system. You can have anyone write a report on anything if you pay them enough.

All I know is if I ever have a rug rat I would rather have them in a class of 20 vs 35 with 6 speds in it.

As far as money goes, how many people on this board make more than a teacher. Top pay for a teacher is 65k. That's if you have a masters degree. Seven years of school for 65k a year. No thanks.

And every year having to meet a couple times with 35 sets of parents who all think that little Johnny is special and better than everyone. Why isn't he doing better? My son/daughter is not disruptive. How could you say that. It has to be your teaching style.

All that for the grand total of 65k a year max. No thanks.

So rambler6, If you had 2 kids in the school system for 12+ years are you prepared to pay more than $6500 per year to cover their salary or are you expecting someone else to pay for your kids?

 

[shawn]

Not just teachers

Sorry Noeasgood, never was a great speller. It seems all people are talking about is teachers. I mean everything that the Government and Unions has its hands on.

Ferries
Transit
Insurance
Health Care "might not be a bad thing"
Sanitation
Public education

Take Insurance for example. What would happen if you wanted to complain to ICBC about the way a adjuster treated you or handled your claim? They would just laugh at you.

If Insurance was privatized, rates might go up for youthful drivers, but at least we would have choice about what carrier we wanted.

Vancouver is growing city, you see it all around you. With all the skyscrapers going up, Vancouver is now definately on the map. With the exception of EA sports and movie companys many large companys do want to move here because of the power of the union.

 

[FuZzYknUckLeS]

I used to be one of those people that thought teachers were nothing more than a bunch of greedy sons-o-bitches trying to screw over the govt. Then I actually stopped to look at the situation. Besides the obvious salary issue raised by rambler6 above, if you look at the issues that the teachers argue for, they are nearly all about making things better for the kids. If you think about it, the only reason a person would become a teacher in the first place is because they actually like kids. Enough to go through years of school to help as many as they can. Unlike law or med students, nobody goes to school to become a teacher with the idea they will get rich from it. Smaller classes. More teachers and less workload. More special needs. I mean, can you imagine wtf the education system would be like today, if the teachers couldn't fight for these things? Who else would? Nobody. The system would simply be what the govt. made it. Kind of like our health care system. Imagine waiting lists for your kid to get into grade 1?
The teachers have actually held off on wage increases so that the govt. could reduce class sizes. A move that was successful in reducing only class sizes below grade 4. And the waiting list thing I mentioned isn't that far fetched. There are already waiting lists for special needs kids.
(No, I am not a teacher, nor do I know any personally.)
I fucking despise unions for the most part, but in this case, they're a lesser evil that the govt. they have to constantly fucking butt heads with.

 

[IQof10]

I agree

I have nothing but respect for them. I couldn't do it, I know that much. I would kill the little rug rats. They deserve to bargain in good faith which this gov't will not do with anyone. One friend went from having 22 kids in her class to 35 in one summer. Six were special needs with no assistance. She has never had any special needs training. This is just my opinion, but a bit of the surplus should go to getting the education system back in order.

NOT an easy job these days. Way under paid for what they put up with.

 

[rambler6]

Idiot

I've stated that all they can ever expect is to earn is 65k. That's peanuts compared to what someone in the private sector can earn with that education. Why the hell would I pay another $6500 a year when the top end teachers already getting it. I think you're missing the point idiot.

So rambler6, If you had 2 kids in the school system for 12+ years are you prepared to pay more than $6500 per year to cover their salary or are you expecting someone else to pay for your kids?

 

[Maury Beniowski]

I'm normally not a nit picker for spelling but Reagon is actually spellled Reagan.

There's no such thing as a normal nitpicker. However, didn't Ronald get labelled Raygun during his two terms as Governor of California, and later in the White House for his sponsorship of the Star Wars doctrine? So phonetically speaking, Reagon would come close enough.

Like I said, nitpicking is not a normal activity.